INTRO DUCTO RY.

EADERS of C harles Di cken s must all have remarked the deep and abiding interest he took in that grim accessory to civili

zati on the . not , prison He only went jail hunt n ff i g whenever opportunity o ered, but made a of profound study the rules, practices , and in f . abuses o these institutions Penology was , one of and of fact, his hobbies, some the most powerful passages in his books are those which have thei r scene of ‘ action laid within the f shadow o the gaol . It was this fact which led to the compilation of the papers comprised i n the present volume . The writer had been a student of Dickens from the days when the publication of his in novels serial form was a periodical event . f When he first visited England , many o the n h la dmarks whic the novelist had, in a manner, s in made hi torical , were still existence, but of the principal prisons which figure in his wo rks Newgate was the only one which existed in t u r i v Ez rod cto y.

i Th any approx mation to its integrity . e ’ Fleet and the King s Bench were entirely swept away ; of the Marshalsea only a few buildings remained , converted to ordinary

‘ I n hi . t s uses country, however, the two jails which interested him, still remain , with cer tain changes that do not impair their general conformance to his descriptions .

of These papers , therefore, consist personal knowledge, as a voluntary visitor, be it under stood of Newgate . The Tombs in New York, and the Eastern District Penitentiary i n

Philadelphia, s upplemented by references to F r and . o the records the Fleet, Marshalsea, the Kings Bench, the writer is indebted to chronicles and descriptions of Peter Cunning in ham , John Timbs , Leigh Hunt, and other geni o us and interesting historians of the Lon ” d f on o the early Victorian era . In connection with the paper relating to the Eastern Dis tri ct o f Penitentiary Philadelphia, his thanks are due for the assistance and information rendered by Mr . Michael J . Cassidy, the War den .

ALFRED TRUMBLE .

New 1 6 York, March 89 . T ENT S C O N .

H T R I C AP E .

GA I O NEW TE W TH UT,

A E I CH PT R I.

NEWGATE WITHIN

HAPTER III C .

THE L P I ON F EET R S ,

CHAPTER IV .

THE MARSHALSEA

CHAPTER V .

’ THE KING S B N C E H, 134

CHAPTER V I .

THE NEW YO K TOMB R S,

CH APTER VII .

’ P ILAD LP IA BA IL H E H S ST E, Presented to the

LIB RA RY of the UNIVERSITY O F T O RO NT O

Vi c t o r i a. Un i v e r s i t y ( 511 gm with M arlee gimme.

CHAPTER I .

N W G I O U E ATE W TH T.

EW GAT E was the first prison to whi ch Charles Dickens gave any literary atten tion . An account of a visit to it appears among “ ” the early Sketches by Boz . It is also the only on e of the London jails of which he has left us graphic descriptions, or briefer, spirited sket h o c es, which preserves t day so much of its original character as to be identifiable i n de f tail by the student o his works . The Fleet and ’ the King s Bench have disappeared . The Mar shal sea may only be recognized by slight sur v i v in g landmarks . But the sombre and sul len 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 r - of ipeness, in the forcing bed the most mag In Jai l with ha rles ic ens 2 C D k . nifi cent , wonderful and monstrously terrible f h city o t eworld . If external gloom could exercise an influence to deter anyone from the commission of crime o f which it is a part of the penalty, Newgate a t would never have any inmates . Surrounded the time of my introductory visit to it, as an

c a cidental but not legally involuntary visitor,

- by low public houses, poor shops and a tumble and down market , all bearing the grime of age the e of marks of d cay, as if the frown the great jail had blighted them ; with the foul , miry

a ew ate - l ne of N g 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 t o u . it 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 u o f q est 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 i n fo stone toweringloftily the g, with little ut lVewgate Wi tho . 3 windows here and there along its frowning o wall . They were s small that they might have been mere spaces where the builders had for

to o f had gotten put in a block granite, if it not been for the strong, rusty bars that crossed man o ut o f them . I asked a who came a public -house wiping his mouth on the back of H his hand what place that was . e stared at me i n and evident amazement for a minute, then of said, shortly, in an aggravated tone voice, poking a finger, still moist from his libation , at : it, like a dagger “

ew ate . N g , that is n in He went alo g, shaking his head a dubious at way and looking back several times me, clearly either suspicious of the genuineness o f o r my stupendous ignorance, unable to com prehend how anyone could be ignorant of the o f f m u il n d identity the a o s j a . I have o oubt

f . In that it was vastly stupid o me fact, I ex peri en ced a certain feeling o f contempt for my and self, now that I knew what the place was , ; 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 acquaint 4 In ail with harles ic e J C D k ns. ance n generously admit, and o e could scarcely

to - i be expected know it like a guide book, w thin forty -eight hours after making first acquaint ance with its bitter beer, its bloody beef, and its beds into whose coverlids the essence of the fo g seemed to have penetrated , if, indeed, the n ot sheets were woven out of the fog itself . i n Newgate, its external appearance, at least, an is ideal prison . Its aspect, whether pur p osely o r through the adaptation of its con

- s to . truction its uses, is thoroughly jail like in The few openings the walls, the empty blind niches, which might have been left there for statues of great felons never set up in them ; rv the entrance , with its festooned fetters ca ed i n stone a s an ornament to the gloomy and and a forbidding portal, all are appropriate to f o f significant part o it . Within a few feet where I stood when I viewed it first was the l spot where the scafi o d used to be put up .

on of on e Here, the occasion an execution , as “ ” 52 liv er may read in Chapter of O Twist, the space before the prison was cleared, and a few strong barriers painted black thrown across of the road to break the pressure the crowd, while the morefavored portion of the audien ce t out Newga te Wi h . 5

of and occupied every post vantage, at windows housetops , that commanded a view of the ghast l h r y s ow . He e, 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 i . crowd was pushing, quarreling and j ok ng on e Everything told of life and animation , but dark cluster of objects in the very centre of all

- and the black stage, the crossbeam, the rope, all the hideous apparatus of death . Prisoners of old were executed on Tyburn o r Hill in public , on some occasions, when it an was especially desired to enforce example, as close as possible to the scene of guilt . Those who were punished for participation in the Gordon Riots of 1780 were swung ofi i n the va rious parts of the city where thei r crimes 1 3 n were committed . In 79 the commo places o f execution were changed to the Old Bailey, in front of Newgate . There the first culprit n was executed o December 9 of that year .

Hanging was brisk when George III . was king . 1785 Between February and December, , ninety six persons suffered by the trap arrangement In Jai with harles ic e s 6 l C D k n . now in common use the world over, which was “ ” to then known as the new drop . Previous that time it had been the custom to perch the i candidates for the halter on a cart, wh ch was driven from under them at the fatal signal , while someone hung on to their legs to choke — them more speedily and surely an expedi tious practice quite frequently resorted to by and Judge Lynch in America in after years , still not entirely o ut of use for extemporaneous “ ” 2 executions . In Barnaby Rudge (volume , chapter 19) Dickens gives the most detailed description of a Newgate execution which c c n curs i his works . The passage is well worth quoting at length : “ In The time wore on . The noises the streets became less frequent by degrees until the si lence 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 inter val of darknessand 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 . ’ Into the street, outside the gaol s main wall , n ate Without. 7

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 o e r o n e the ga l itself, b a ing th ir 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 . “ of Here and there among this knot laborers , one with a lantern o r a smoky link stood by to light his fellows at their work ; and by its u do btful aid some might be seen dimly, taking of up the pavement the road , while others held s upright great posts, or fixed them in holes thu a m de for their reception . Some dragged slowly o n toward the rest an empty cart, which they e brought rumbling from the prison yard , whil

other erected strong barriers across the street . s All were busily engaged . Their dusky figure

moving to and fro at that unusual hour, so

active and so silent, might have been taken of toili n at for those shadowy creatures g‘ mid i o n n ght some ghostly, unsubstantial work , the which , like themselves , would vanish with t first gleam of day, and leave but morning mis and vapor . “ While it was yet dark a few loc kers - on col l ected w ho had , plainly come there for that pur pose and intended to remain ; even those who had to pass the spot on their way to some other I n a w h r ic 8 J il it Cha les D kens.

place, lingered , and lingered yet, as though the t t attrac ion of hat were irresistible . Mean while the noise of the saw and mallet went on t d briskly, mingled with the clat ering of boar s o n the stone pavement of the road, and some times with the workmens ’ voices as they called to one another . W henever the chimes of the neighboring church were heard—and that was —a every quarter of an hour strong sensation , instantaneous and indescribable, but perfectly obvious , seemed to pervade them all . “ Gradually a faint brightness appeared in the

East , and the air, which had been very warm through the night , felt cool and chilly . Though h t ere was no daylight yet, the darkness was diminished , and the stars looked pale . The prison , which had been a mere black mass , with o r little shape 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 l man , from forming, as it were, a part of the gao , and knowing, or being supposed to know, all that was passing within , became an object of u m ch interest, and was eagerly looked for, and as awfully pointed out as if he had been a spirit . “ h By and by t e feeble light grew stronger, in and the houses , with their signboards and scri ti on s p , stood plainly out in the dull gray

- of the morning. Heavy stage wagons crawled nn from the i yard opposite, and travelers w a te i thout 9 Ne g W .

peeped out, and, as they rolled sluggishly away, cast many a b a ckward look toward the gaol . And now the sun ’ s first beams came glan cing ’ into the street , and the night s work, which in its various stages and in the varied fancies of

- u the lo c kers o had taken a hundred shapes , w ere its own proper form a scaffold and gibbet . “As the warmth of the cheerful day began to shed itself upon the scanty crowd the mur mur of tongues was heard , shutters were se thrown open, the blinds drawn up . and tho 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 a c commo a s ecta d tion of the spectators ; in others , the p t ors were already seated, and beguiling the time with cards, or drink, or jokes among them selves . 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 scafi o ld affecting to listen with indifference to the pro ’ pri eto r s eulogy of the commanding view his ff house a orded , and the surpassing cheapness of his terms . 10 In ail with harles ic ens J C D k .

A fairer morning never shone . From the roofs and the upper stories of the buildings the spires of the city churches and the great cath th edral dome were visible, rising up beyond e prison into the blue sky, and clad in the color of light summer clouds, and showing in the clear at mosphere their every scrap of tracery and fretwork, an d every niche and loophole . All was l ightness , brightness and promise, excepting in the street below , into which (for it lay yet in the a sh dow) the eye looked down into a dark trench, where, in the midst of so much life and hope t and renewal of exis ence , stood the terrible instrument of death . It seemed as if the very sun forbore to look upon it . “ But it was better, grim and sombre in the shade, than when , the day being more advanced , i t stood confessed in full glare and glory of the it s sun, with its black paint blistering and nooses dangling in the light like loathsome gar It lands . was better in the solitude and gloom o f few t midnight , with a forms clustering abou it, than in the freshness and the stir of the morn ing, the centre of an eager crowd . It was bet ter 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 . “ ’ — Five o clock had struck six, seven and t o eight . Along the w main streets, at either New ate itho t 11 g W u .

nd f the c n ow e o rossway, a living stream had set in, rolling to the marts of gain and busi ness . Carts , coaches, wagons, trucks and o ut barrows, forced a passage through the skirts of the throng and clattered onward in the same direction . Some of these, which were public conveyances , and had come from r a short distance in the count y, 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 passen gers were turned that way without his help and the coach windows were stuck full of star ing eyes . In some of the carts and wagons the women might be seen , glancing fearfully at 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 h ow men were hanged . “ 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 a marched into the stret, and formed and lined n narrow passage into Holbor , which had been ir- f di ferently kept all night by constables . Through this another cart w a s brought (the one already mentioned had been employed scafi old in the construction of the ) , and wheeled up to the prison gate . These pre arati ons p made, the soldiers stood at ease ; 12 I n ail with harles e J C Dick ns. the offi cers lounged to and fro in the alley th they had made, or talked together at e ’ s cafi o ld s foot ; and the concourse which had been rapidly augmenting for some hours , and still received additions every minute , wa ited with an impatience which increased ’ with every chime of St . Sepulchre s clock for tw elve at noon . “ U p to this time they had been very quiet, comparatively silent, save when the arrival of un o c cu some new party at a window, hitherto pied, gave them something to look at or to talk

o f . But, as the hour approached, a buzz and a hum arose, which, deepening every moment, s oon swelled into a roar, and seemed to fill the

. o r air No words , even voices , could be dis tin ui shed g 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 t heir neighbors , perhaps, that they might know o ut the hangman when he came , 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 . “ 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 i t ’ either, for they could see it in the peoples faces . So surely as another quarter chimed

4 I n ail wi h h rles 1 J t C a Dickens. now choked up with heads ; t he housetops teemed with people clinging to chimneys , peer - n ing over gable ends , and holding o 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 lamp of posts, every inch room swarmed with human life . “At the first stroke of twelve the prison bell began to toll . Then the roar, mingled now with ‘ ’ ‘ cr of a s o ff' e o w ' —an d ies H t and Poor f ll s , from some specks in the great concourse with — , a shriek or gro—an burst forth again . It was terrible to see if anyone in t—hat distraction o f excitement could have seen the world of eager eyes all strained upon the scaffold an d ” the beam . “ The Newgate gallows in Barnaby Rudge ruffian was set up for the 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

-b — of one oth were boys one with a leg wood, who dragged his twisted body along with the

of in help a crutch, were hanged Bloomsbury

Square, where they had helped to sack Lord ’ M an sfield s i in house, and other r oters other i t ut n ate W ho .

of parts the town, in despoiling which they had ' ” It ma been conspicuous . y be recalled that the mother of Hugh herself had died on the ff sca old, at Tyburn , for the crime of passing r of forged notes . To descend from the ealm of romance to that reality, the most memorable executions in the Old Bailey were those of Mrs . Phi oe 1797 p , the murderess, in ; of Governor 2 1802 . 8 Wall of Trinidad, for murder, on Jan , ; o f o o n Hall way and Haggerty, the murderers ,

. 22 1807 Feb , , 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 scaff old i n on 1 the presence of the multitude, May , 182 0 of fo r ; Fauntleroy, the banker, hanged 1824 of Greena cre i n forging in ; the assassin , 183 7 C ourv oi ser ; of , who murdered Lord Wil 1840 u e liam Russell , in ; and of Franz M ll r, the m railway urderer, who was extradited from this country, as will doubtless be remembered to 4 by many, and sent his doom in 186 . That same y ear seven pirates were also suspended in the Old Bailey. Since then executions have been carried o ut privately within the walls of the prison . 16 I n ail with harles i s J C D cken .

“ A contemporary of Dickens , in the Ingolds ” ff by Legends, has given us a picture, in a di er ent 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 Greena cre was to be hanged at Newgate ; here was indeed a sensation for “ Hi s : Lordship To see a man swing, at the end o f 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 a j il , and invites his friends to come and help him see a man die in his shoes . They help him “ fi ectuall so e y 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 hack ney coaches and a state of deep disgust . Anoth of er contemporary, more ample renown , Thac

to o a er. keray wit, gave some attenti n to the m tt ’ 1840 h e In July, , published, in Frazer s Maga e h Newga t Wi t out. 17

“ n e zi e, a paper call d Going to see a man hang ” d r e . C o urv o i se The man was ; and Thackeray, n u like Lord Tomnoddy, did not fall asleep over the feast, and so did see him mount the scaffold . ’ Surgeons Hall used to stand close to New a g te and the Old Bailey, and the victims of the halter were handed over to the doctors for dis

e . of s ction The corpse wicked Lord Ferrers , who was executed in 1760 at Tyburn for mur

e l n ~ d ring his steward, was taken in his own a ’ d ean and six to the Surgeons Theatre to be cut

. con up After having been disemboweled, in fo rman ce f th with the sentence , the body o e bad lord was put on show in the first floor win dow , 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

d fo r from the Tower, my Lor intimated a desire ff some wine, being thirsty . The Sheri , 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 whi ch he 2 18 In ail with harles i J C D ckens.

in “ had his pocket, I must be content with ” this . He harbored n o malice against the Sher iff , however, for he presented him with his watch as they neared Tyburn . To the Chap a l in he gave five guineas, and to the execution e r the same sum . The executioner had to pull ff and him by the legs to e ectually strangle him, while the body swung for an hour on the gal ff lows , the sheri s and their friends had lunch on n e o the platform within reach of it . The executioners fought for the rope, says the “ c . hronicler, and the one who lost it, cried

' But w e hav e wandered far from Newgate i n

. a. this wicked company Old Newgate, upon 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

i n . the newest gate the fortification It was , in

o r of fact, at first a mere tower appendage the gate . Newgate was used as a State prison long ne before the Tower . O 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 preach i on of ing . Defoe spent some t me here account i 19 Newgate W thout.

i a political tract, and wrote several others wh le s i n confinement . Dr . Dodd wrote his succes “ ” in New ful comedy, Sir Roger de Coverly, of fo r gate . One the last persons confined here

ff . political o ense was Mr Hobhouse, afterward

Lord Broughton . The street used to be filled with people when he took his exercise on the hat roof, who watched and cheered at his , which was all they could see of him above the wa ll . An odd circumstan ce about Mr . Hob house’ s imprisonment is that Byron had pro phesi ed it in the remark that having foamed s i n himself into a reformer, he would ubside u Newgate . Among the famo s prisoners here we find Savage, the poet, for murder Jack

Sheppard, whose remarkable escape, very much exaggerated upon fact, you may have ’ o ~ read f from Mr . Ainsworth s pen ; and Jona b on ce o than Wild, who , by the y , lived nearly p

osite - p the court house, in the Old Bailey ; Cath erine Hayes , the abandoned heroine of Thack ’ c . the fi ray s novel ; Mrs Brownrigg, end who

- A stl ett tortured her serving maids ; , the Bank of England clerk, who committed forgeries for over and many more . Lord George

Gordon, familiar to all who have read Barn h 20 In Jail with C arles Dickens.

” 1793 i n on aby Rudge, died in , of gaol fever, e o f of the cells of Newgate, after several years o f c nfinement, for libelling the ' ueen o 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 him attack upon the prison caused by , com “ men cin g in the second volume of Barnaby ” B ud e . g , Chapter Fifth “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 pursu n ance of a previous desig , into several parties . It must not be understood that this arrange c ment was known to the whole rowd, but that who it was the work of a few leaders . , mingling with these men as they came upon the ground , and calling to them to fa ll into this or that par t ff y , e ected it as rapidly as if it had been deter on mined by a council of the whole number, and every man had known his place . “ 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 i n any of their former proceedings ; all those whom they recommende d as daring hands and fit for the

2 In ai l ith h rles i 2 J w C a D ckens. mon T a ertit pp between them, led the way .

Roaring an d chafing like an angry sea, the ” crowd pressed after them . They halt upon the way to drag Gabriel a V rden 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 loop ” hole 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 t to pick the locks . He defies hem , and is dragged away barely in time to save his life b v

Joe Willets and Edward Chester, who are t in the mob in disguise . Then the assaul on the j a il begins .

Hammers began to rattle on the walls , and every man strove to reach the prison and be t among the foremost rank . Figh ing their way through the press and struggle as desper ately as if they were in the midst of the enemies rather than their own friends , the two men retreated with t he blacksmith between them , a i th u 23 Newg te W o t. and dragged him through the very heart of the concourse . “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 n i to fragments , and made their hands and arms tingle as if the walls were acti ve in their re i s stan c e and dealt them back their blows . The cla sh o f the iron r1n g1n g 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 o ff at in showers ; men worked in gangs , and t a short intervals relieved each other, h t all their strength might be devoted to the work ; the but there stood portal still , as grim and dark and as strong as ever, and, saving for the dints on its shattered surface, quite unchanged . “ While some brought all their energies to bear upon this toilsome task , and some , rearing lad e er the d rs against the prison , tried to clamb to summit of the walls they were too short to o scale ; and some, again , engaged a body of p lice, and beat them back and trod them under foot by force of numbers ; others b esei ged the house on which the gaoler had appeared, and, driving in the door, brought out his furniture and piled it up against the pri son gate to make lo w c a fire whi h should burn it down . As rl i 24 In Jai l wi th Cha es D ckens.

soon as this device was understood , all those who had labored hitherto cast down their tools n a d helped to swell the heap , which reached t half way across the street, and was so high tha those who threw more fuel on the top got up ’ by ladders . When all the keeper s goods were n flung upon this costly pile to the last fragme t, they smeared it with pitch and tar and rosin they had brought , and sprinkled it with tur pentine . To all the woodwork round the pris on doors they did the like , leaving not a joist or t a beam untouched . This infernal chris ening performed, they fired the pile with lighted an d matches with blazing tow, and then stood v b and waited the result . “ n t The fur i ure being very dry, and rendered the more combustible by wax and oil , besides arts they had used , took fire at once . The a fl mes 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 fi ercer e ; when it crackled and leaped, and r ar ed like a great furnace ; when it shone upon the

opposite houses , and lighted up not only the a p le and wondering faces at the windows , but the inmost corn ers of each habitation ; when through the deep red heat and glow the fire was an d n w seen sporting toying with the door . o cli nging to its obdurate surface, now gliding lVewgate Without. 25

OHwith 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 an d 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 i n the un wonted light like some thing richly jeweled ; when blackened stone and sombre brick grew ruddy in the deep reflection , and windows shone e like burnished gold, dotting the long st dis tance in the fiery vista with their specks o f brightness ; when wall and tower and roof and - fli ck chimney stack seemed drunk, and in the erin g glare appeared to reel and sta gger ; when o ut scores of objects , never seen before, burst

’ 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 , be stirred themselves to feed the fire and keep it its at height . “ Although the heat was so intense that the paint on the houses over against the prison a p rched and crackled up , and swelling into of boils, as it were, from an excess 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 i n that touched them , and the sparrows the i b the eaves took wing, and, rendered gddy y 6 In ail with harles ic ens 2 J C D k .

smoke, fell fluttering down upon the blazing i p le, still the fire was tended increasingly by u an d l b sy hands , round it men were going a ways . They never slackened in their zeal o r e k pt aloof, but pressed upon the flames so hard that those in front had much ado to save them selves from being thrust in ; if on e man swooned o r and dropped, a dozen struggled for his place , t t that, although they knew the pain and hirs and pressure to be unendurable . Those whe fell down i n fainting fits and were crushed o r hurt were carried to an inn yard close at hand and dashed with water from a pump, of which b ucketsfull were passed from man to man among the crowd ; but such was the strong de s o f to th ire all drink, and such e fighting to be c on first, that, for the most part, the whole tents were spilled upon the ground, without the lips oi a man being moistened . “ 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 i st ll a door, fast locked and barred, and kept h t t em o u . Great pieces of burning wood were ’ a p ssed , besides , above the people s heads to of such as stood above the ladders , and some i o these, cl mbing up t the topmost stave , and holding on with one hand by the prison wall , exerted all their skill and force to cast these w ate ith ut Ne g W o . 27

fireb rands on the roof o r down mto the yards In ff within . many instances their e orts were

successful , which occasioned a new and appal

ling addition to the horrors of the scene, for the r prisoners within , seeing from between thei bars that the fire caught in many places and i n thrived fiercely, and being all locked up t strong cells for the night, began to know tha in they were danger of being burnt alive . This an d terrible fear, spreading from cell to cell in from yard to yard, vented itself such dismal and in cries and wailings, 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 and flames , was so full of agony and despair that it made the boldest tremble . “It was remarkable that these cries began in t hat quarter of the gaol which fronted New e s gat treet, where it was well known that the men who were to suffer death o n Thursday were confined . And not only were these four, who ” had a short time to live, the first to whom t the dread of being burnt occurred, but hey were, throughout, the most importunate of all ; for n ot ithst n they could be plainly heard , w a d s ing the great thicknes of the walls , crying that w t the ind set that way, and hat the flames would shortly reach them ; and calling to o ffi cers of the gaol to come and quench the fire in from a cistern which was their yard, and full 28 In ail with harles ic ens J C D k . of water . Judging from what the crowds from t o without the walls could hear from time 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 exist ence, as though each had an honored , happy life f - - f before him, instead o eight and forty hours o a d miserable imprisonment, and then a violent n shameful death . But the anguish and suffering o f the two sons o f o r one of these men , when they heard , fancied ’ d escri they heard, their father s voice, is past p tion . 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 n iron . And when he fell amo g the crowd he was not deterred by his bruises, but mounted u p 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 m a ong the mob about the door, though many men, a dozen times their match, had tried in ai in es v n to do so , and were seen ,y in , the fire, striving to pry it down with crowbars . “Nor were they alone affected by the outcry from within the prison . The women who were n looking o shrieked loudly, beat their hands to

I n ail with har i e s J C les D ck n .

As they shouted again they fell back fo r a moment a nd left a clear space about the fire that lay between them and the gaol entry . Hugh leaped upon the blazing heap, and scattering a ai r train of sparks into the , and making the dark lobby glitter with those that hung upon his dress, dashed into the gaol . “ The hangman followed . And then so many rushed upon their track that the fire got trodden down and thinly strewed about the street ; but n o for there was need of it now, , inside and out ” the prison was in flames . The rioters celebrated the capture of New i n gate roaring style . They commanded and compelled the citizens all around the place to illuminate their houses from bottom to top , as i f of for a glorious national event, and at a time “ public gayety and joy . When this last task had been achieved the shouts and cries grew

re fainter ; the clank of the fetters, which had on sounded 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 i o f t de had rolled away, a melancholy heap smoking ruins marked the spot where it had ” a r r d s ecta l tely chafed and ea e . Among the p tors of the capture of Newgate was the poet i ZVewga te W thout.

Crabbe, then a young man seeking his fortune in ti of ' it in London , and he has left a descrip on h ' is journal . Dr . Johnson records the fact that

on Wednesday I walked with Dr . Scott (Lord Stowell) to look at Newgate and found it i n ruins , with the fire yet glowing . As I went by, the Protestants were plundering the Sessions t . no b e House in the Old Bailey There were , I lieve, a hundred ; but they did their work at

‘ lei sure i n i , full security, without sentinels , w th out men in trepidation, as lawfully employed, full day . of At the period the Gordon Riots , Newgate f was in the course o reconstruction . The pres ent prison was designed by George Dance, R . A f d . o an , the architect the Mansion House Ma other public buildings . The famous Lord y “ ” of of V athek or Beckford, father the author , a on 23 1770 l id the foundation stone May , , this to being his last public act . Work seems have

fo r progressed slowly on it, the newer portion was only in part completed when the Gordon mo b stormed the older sections . This event i t o served as a warning, however . With n w years Newgate was in stronger shape than hi ch ever ; and substantially in the shape w , 32 I n ail with ha rles i J C D ckens.

of after the passage more than a century, it still presents to the world . Newgate serves to London the purpose of a reception prison for offenders awaiting trial th and for those condemned to death, and e exe cuti ons of the great city are performed within

its . i s walls The Old Bailey Court, which an adjunct to it, is practically a part of the moun tain of masonry which sends its bleak shadow i s over Newgate street and the Old Bailey . It 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 Bail e i t y , and pol tely as the Central Criminal Cour 1773 was built in , was destroyed with Newgate i n th e 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 vis the iters . At one side is the chief seat for u b j dge, with a canopy overhead surmounted y the royal arms , and a gilded sheathed sword on

’ the crimson wall . Opposite is the prisoners cov dock, with the stairs descending into the ered passageway, which gives access by the t way of the Press Yard to Newgate . To the lef o - f the dock is the witness stand, and further to th u 3 Newga te Wi o t. 3

the the left the jury box . The counsel occupy 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 lar c en ff the y and o enses on the high seas, but only heaviest ones are brought to judgment before this branch of the Sessions . What is called the s New Court, adjoining the old one, its 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 Sherifl court with true dignity, the , the Lord

~ Chancellor, and a long list of Judges , Alder m n e . , Recorders and so on Of these the real

Judges are the Recorder and Common Sar ‘ ’

ff . geant, and the Judge of the Sheri s Court The law Judges take part when knotty legal ques i s tions come in dispute, or when the tr al i for a capital od ense 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 . Above the Old Court is a stately dining - room where, during the Old Bailey sittings , the Sher id s f used to give Judges and Court o ficials, and 3 In ai l with Cha rles ic ens 34: J D k .

a few privileged visitors, dinners of rump steak an d l of marrow puddings , according to a bil b fare provided by custom . The custom, I e lieve, is kept up still . There are two dinners , at 3 5 ’ and o clock respectively, and a historic court chaplain is told of who for ten years ate both of these meals each day . There is a reverse t o t his plea sant picture of it the Old Bailey . For many years was a most unhealthy place to hold court in . The jail fevers ’ which decimated Newgate s population always 1750 found their way into the court room . In the fever caused the death of several judges and Lord Mayor Pennant himself, and when ever there was an epidemic there are records of its effect among the potentates of the Old Bail “ ” in e . y In Chapter 7 of A Tale of Two Cities,

connection with the trial of Charles Darnay, “ Dickens writes of the Old Bailey Court : They a h nged at Tyburn in those days , so the street outside of Newgate had not obtained the i nfa

mous notoriety that has sin ce attached to it .

But the gaol was a vile place, in which most kinds of debauchery and villainy were pra c

ticed , and where dire diseases were bred, that a and c me into the Court with the prisoners, u 35 IVewga te Witho t. sometimes rushed straight from the dock at my h and off Lord Chief Justice imself, pulled him d the bench . It had more than once happene that the judge In the black cap pronounced his ’ — o n and w doom as certainly as the prisoner s,

o f even died before him . In the course the same chapter he describes the accused as n standi g 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

' i ll tre n t was strewn . The Court was a b es w with herbs, and sprinkled with vinegar, as a ” In precaution against gaol air and gaol fever .

~ 1770 . , Mr Ackerman , one of the keepers, testi fi ed before the House of Commons, which had the it question of rebuilding the prison before , i n of 1750 that the spring , the j ail distemper Sessmn had spread to the s House, now the Old in to Bailey, and had caused the death , addition tw o a al Judges , and the Lord M yor already lud ed t f th an d o, of several o e jury others to the f number o over sixty persons . The surroundings of New gate are full of his to ri cal off Gilt ur memories . Just sp street, but a step away, is Cock lane, where the ghost walk 3 6 In ail with harles ic ens J C D k .

ed . Along Newgate street, going from the Old to Bailey Cheapside, was the noble old charity ’ of Christ s Hospital , otherwise famous as the

- Blue Coat School , rich in works of art and rich er in the recollections of such scholars within its cloisters as Coleridge, Charles Lamb, Leigh “ Hunt, Richardson , who wrote Clarissa Har ” t lowe, and many more . Along the same stree ’ ’ s opens ' ueen s Head Passage, in which Dolly

- chop house, which is a part of the commercial history of England, stands , and Ivy Lane, t where Dr . Johnson established his club of tha t . ew a e name N g Market, between Newgate street and Paternoster Row , is the great meat a s market of London . It is what is known the a a fo r a wa s carc ss m rket, and m ny years the chief source of slaughtered meat supply to the re tail butchers of London . At a certain hour of the morning Newgate street was a veritable butch ’ rS m n e exchange . Newgate arket was origi ally a meat market, but its convenient proximity to Smithfield New , which lies on the other side of o fi gate, only a few streets , led to its conversion mithfiel d to its later uses . S was the historic cattle market of London . Here in the past men and were slaughtered beasts for food, and

38 I n ail with harles i ckens J C D .

t e whooping, yelling, h 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 u ” q ite confounded the senses . “ to o i v ide It may be remembered , Great Ex ” 2 0 pectations, chapter , that when Pip came up to London to find his guardian , Mr . Jag gers, he beguiled that time while awaiting his return to his office by wandering about the “ Smithfield neighborhood, and so came into , and the shameful place being all asmear with

filth and fat and blood and foam, seemed to o ff stick to me . So I rubbed it with all possi ble 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 . When ever he writes of the jail , he does so in the same of spirit . His earliest impressions it struck the ’ keynote for his whole life s view of it . What those early impressions were one may discover “ ” i n f that paper o the Sketches by Boz which , 2 4 in their collected shape, bears the number , “ and has for title, Criminal Courts . w e Ne gat Without. 39

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 r days . How dreadful its ough heavy walls , —, and how massive the doors appeared to us the latter looking as if they were made for the ex press purpose of letting people in and never l et ting them out again . Then the fetters over the ’ e d btor s door, which we used to think were a bona fid e set of irons just hung up there for con v eni en ce mo sake, ready to be taken down at a ment’ s notice and rivetted on the limbs of some

~ refractory felon . We were never tired won dering how the hackney coachman on the o p p o site stand could cut j okes in the presence of an d - - such horrors , drink pots of half and half so e n ar the last drop . “ 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 f apparatus , and on the door of which we hal expected t see a brass plate with the in scrip ‘ ’

. f r tion , Mr etch, for we neve imagined that the distinguished functionary could by possi bi lit y live anywhere else . The days of those childish dreams have passed away, and with them many other boyish ideas of gayer na ~

‘ ture . But we shall retain so much of our orig inal feeling that to this hour we never pass the ” building without something like a shudder . CHAPTER II .

N W G W I IN E ATE TH .

HE 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 pris ’ oner s quarters are in the wings , which extend f ’ from either side o the keeper s quarters . In the o ffi at s gloomy ce, men with th inde cribable f t prison air all such o ficials bear, lounge abou , and come and go on business . There is iron everywhere, from the huge bolts on the outer

o t o the d ors , and the door inside of them, bar red windows and other doors beyond number, that open an d shut with a sullen clangor that goes echoing through the stone passages as i t it would never die away . The smell of the jail is a s po werful in its way as these evidences o f its actual strength . It blows into your face in o u a strong breath when the door opens for y , and you find it lingeringab out yo u hours after n 41 IVewga te Wi thi .

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 ff as di erent from all , and horrible as the thing it recalls to you whenever you breathe it, or fancy you do . “ What London pedestrian is there, writes i 2 4 “ D ckens, in chapter 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 i n di sc rib ab le discern , with an feeling of curios ity . The thick door, plated with iron, and mounted

’ with spikes just low enough to enable you to

l ’ -l o okin fellow see leaning over them an ill g ,

- in a broad brimmed hat , Belcher handkerchief

- and top boots ; with a brown coat , something ‘ ’ a - t between a gre t coat and a sporting jacke , on c his ba k, and an immense key in his left hand . Perhaps you are lucky enough to pass u j st as the gate is being opened ; then , you th see on the other side of e lodge another gate, 42 In a i l with harles i c ens J C D k .

of the image its predecessor, and two or three more turnkeys , who look like multiplication s on e of the first , seated around a fire, which just lights up the white - washed apartment sufficiently to enable you to catch a glimpse of ff ” these di erent objects . In the next paper of the same series , he conducts us within the “ n t lodge, One side is plentifully gar ished wi h o f a choice collection of heavy sets 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 , t d i s ud ed with nails of the same mater al , and guarded by another turnkey, opens on a few steps, if we remember right, which terminate in a narrow and dismal stone passage, run ning parallel with the Old Bailey and lead f ing to the di ferent yards, through a number of tortuous an d intricate windings , guarded in their turn by huge gates and gratings, whose appearance is suffi cient to dispel at once the slightest hope of escape that any newcomer may have en tertained ; and the very recollection e of which , on eventually traversing the plac ” again, involves one in a maze of confusion . w ate ithin 43 IVe g W .

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

- r f . s hold o their prison ship . Mrs Frye desc ibe “ ~ the women as swearing, gaming, fighting, sing

’ s ing, dancing, drinking, and dressing up in men ” 183 clothes , and as late as 8 gambling with cards, dice and draughts was common among the ma le prisoners . Jail distempers now and then purged this sink of vileness of a portion of 1858 n its inmates , till at last, in , the reco f struction o its cellular system was completed . w thin Even with that, however, Ne gate is any g, / ’ a —i but perfect jail . In the earlier f iizken s era

‘ ‘ ’ i t oi i ts ancient character “ ” i f r I n em fflé c s . Great Expectations , when W “ i : At m ck takes Pip to visit it, we read that time gaols were much neglected, and the f period o exaggerated —reaction consequent on all public wrongdoing and which is always its longest and heaviest punishment—was still

off. n d far So , felons were not lodged a fed 44 I n ail wi th Charles ic ens J D k .

to better than soldiers ( 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 Wem mick took me i n ; and a potman was going his rounds with beer ; and the prisoners behind the a b rs in the yards were buying beer, and talk ing to friends ; and a frowsy, ugly, disorderly , ” d ri ~ depressing scene it was . The earlier esc p “ ” “ ew ate h tion, A Visit to N g , in the Boz Sketc ’ es thus depicts the women s side of the jail : — The buildings in the prison or in other ff — words the di erent wards form a square, of which the four sides abut respectively on the

Old Bailey, the old College of Physicians (now New ateM arket forming a part of g ) , the Ses sions House and Newgate street . The inter mediate space is divided into several paved the prisoners take such air

ci as ram b e 8 11 0 11 . and exer se l had in a place ' - a exce tion of that Imw i h These y rds, with the p h c the prisoners under the sentence of death are c n o fined, 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

I a i h r i 46 n J il w t Cha les D ckens.

apartment . Over the fireplace was a large sheet of pasteboard , on which were displayed o f a variety 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 suffi cient provision of a kind of stewed beef and brown a re bread, in pewter dishes which kept perfectly i br ght, and displayed on shelves in great order and regularity when not in use . “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 a llowed the privilege of sleeping on bedsteads : a small stump bedstead being placed ” i n every ward fo r the purpose . on This, in itself, was a vast improvement i n the style of the last century Newgate . Then the prisoner had no comfo rt unless he paid roundly for it . His cell contained a stone on bench or two, which the first comer might m n ake his bed The rest slept o the floor . On ce in a great while a truss o f straw was tossed in to them, as it might have been to a rot beast in a stall . This straw remained until it ted to a pulp . Then another truss was used to r scatte over it . So, in time, the prisoners slept i h 47 IVewga te W t in .

en on a veritable dunghill , the compost being g erally left to fester till it bred a fever, when off to m it would be carted , disseminate the ger s o f disease which it had engendered , outside the jail walls ; and the same process was begun of over again . In the matter cleanliness a change for the better had been made i n Dick ’ ens s time ; but o ne great evil of the j ail was the herdin gto gether 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, i n so of short, not much a place punishment for and crime as a powerful breeder of it, many man an d who a boy, and woman and girl , went a o fl en se into Newgate for a trivi l , emerged from

- fled ed and So it a full g incorrigible lawbreaker . outrageous did this condition of things become that many thoughtful men began seriously to question whether the means of restricting c as ew ate not rime, practiced in N g , were really In worse than the crime itself . the sketch already quoted , Dickens says : “ ’ the They ( 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 dur 4 I n ail with h r es i ke 8 J C a l D c ns. ing 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 - e coat and top boots ; further on, a desperat in looking fellow his shirtsleeves, with an old Scotch cap upon his shaggy head ; near him rufi an - again , a tall in a smock frock ; next to him a miserable being of distressed appearance — , with his head resting on his hand all alike i n c one respe t, all idle and listless ; when they t do leave the fire, sauntering moodily abou , t e lounging in h windows , or leaning against the wall , vacantly swinging their bodies to and fro . With the exception of an old man reading a in newspaper, two or three instances this was the case in every ward we entered . The only communication these men have with their frien ds 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 a cross , nor can the prisoner have any communi cation 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 . When the prisoners had visitors a keeper always sat in the space between the gratings, so that private communication was practically w a te i h 49 Ne g W t in .

m i i possible . The only exception was made n favor of lawyers in visiting their clients ; but prisoners of note could secure the privilege of privacy through the pressure of official i nflu

' en ce on . the head keeper In fact, during later f years an e fort, only partially successful , was made in Newgate to grade the prisoners accord ing to their criminal standard , and to keep the

a a . cl sses part 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 pris ~ oners, whose influence on them could not be but U for evil . nder the more humane management o f the present century Newgate was even pro “ i ~ v ded with a school . A portion of the pris ” “ ” “ on fo r , says Boz , in his Visit, is set apart ” “ boys under fourteen years of age . In a tol erabl e sized room, in which were writingma teri al s - and some copybooks , was the school mas ter with a couple of his pupils ; the remainder having been fetched from an adjoining apart m ent, the whole were drawn up in a line for our inspection . There were fourteen of them in all , some with shoes , some without ; some i n pinafores without jackets, others in jackets ai i h s i 50 I n J l w t Charle D ckens.

an d without pinafores , one in scarce anything

at . exc e all The whole number, without an p tion , we believe, had been committed for trial on charges of pocket -picking ; and fourteen such terrible little faces we never beheld . There t was not a glance of hones y , not a wink ex pressive of anything but the gallows and the hulks , in the whole collection . As to any i th ng like shame or contrition, that was entirely out of the question . They were evi dently 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

f t ~ grand af air, and that hey were an indis pensable 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 ex ” el r cessiv y me itorious in getting there at all . Dickens had made a close study of this type o f 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 : “ is for A boy of thirteen tried, say, picking w a t n 51 Ne g te Wi hi .

of o f the pocket some subject Her Majesty, and the offense is about as clearly proved as an ff n o ense ca be . He is called upon for his decla ~ defence, and contents himself with a little mation about the jurymen and his country ; asserts that all the witnesses have committed perjury, and hints that the police force gener ally have entered into a conspiracy against t him . However probable his sta ement may be, i t t fails to convince the Cour , and some such scene as the following takes place . “ Court : Have you any witnesses to speak for ? your character, boy “ ’ ’ : en lm n Boy Yes , my Lord ; fifteen g is a av aten vaten outside, and vos all day yesterday, vich they told me the night afore my trial v o s a coming on . “ Court : Inquire for these witnesses .

Here a stout beadle runs out, and vociferates for the witness at the very top of his voice ; for y o u hear his cry grow fainter and fainter as he descends the steps into the courtyard below . t t After an absence of five minu es he re urns, t very warm and hoarse, and informs the Cour efo a amel of what he knew perfectly well b y , that there are no such witnesses in attend ance . Hereupon the boy sets up a most awful o f howling, screws the lower part the palms o f o his hands into the c rners of his eyes , and en deavors to look the picture of injured inno him ‘ ’ cence . The j ury at onc e find guilty, I a h r e i 52 n J i l wit Cha l s D ckens. 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 ’ ’ ’ : en lm n 1 in some such terms as S elp me g , — , never vos in trouble afore indeed , my Lord, ’ I - m never vos . It s all a howen to y having a twin brother, vich has wrongfully got into n o trouble, and vich is so exactly like me, that ff ’ one ever knows the di erence atween us . “ This representation, like the defence, fails efi ect in producing the desired , and the boy is ’ sentenced, perhaps, to seven years transporta tion . Finding it impossible to excite compas im re sion , he gives vent to his feelings in an p ‘ cation b ea ring reference to the eyes of old big ' t o vig, and as he declines take the trouble t of walking from the dock, is forthwi h carried out, congratulating himself on having suc c eeded in givin g everybody as much trouble as possible .

In a similar vein, when the Artful Dodger “ ” a 43 f lls into the toils ( Oliver Twist, Chapter ) he asserts himself . “ ffl It was indeed Mr . Dawkins , who, shu ing into the o ffiée 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 tak

I n ail with harles ic J C D kens.

What i s this ? inqui red o ne o f the magis trates . ‘ - ’ A pocket picketing case, your worship . ’ Has the boy ever been h ere before ? ‘ ‘ o to a He ught have been , a m ny times , ‘ replied the gaoler . He has been pretty well everywhere else . I know him well , your wor ’ ship . ‘ ? ’ Oh, you know me, do you cried the Artful , ‘ making a note of the statement . Werry good ’ of That s a case deformation of character, any ’ way . “ Here there was another laugh, and another cry for silence . ?’ Now then , where are the witnesses said the clerk . ‘ ’ ’ ‘ Ah, that s right, added the Dodger . Where ? ’ are they I should like to see em . “ w ifi d This ish was immediately grat e , 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 ’ ff - snu box, with the owner s name engraved upon the lid . This gentleman had been discovered upon reference to the Court Guide, and being n a te Within . 55

f then and there present, swore that the snu f 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 . “ ‘ e Hav you anything to ask this witness , ’ boy ? said the magistrate . ‘I wouldn ’ t abase myself by descending to him ’ e hold no conversation with , repli d the

Dodger . “ ‘Have you anything to say at all ?’ Do you hear his worship ask if you ’ ve any ? ’ thing to say inquired the gaoler, nudging the silent Dodger with his elbow . “ ‘I ’ beg your pardon , said the Dodger, look ing up with an air of abstraction . ‘ Did you mean to say anything, you young shaver ?’ ‘ ’ ‘ ot No , replied the Dodger, n here, for this ’ h at ain t the shop for justice ; besides whic , my torney is a breakfasting this morning with the W ice - President of the House of Commons ; b ut

I shall have something to say elsewhere , and so ’ i ~ w ll he, and so will a wery numerous and spec ’ table circle of acquaintances as ll make them ’ t t beaks wish they d never been born , or ha they’ d got their footman to hang ’ em up to their i t rles c ens 56 I n Ja l wi h Cha Di k .

’ own hat- pegs afore they let em come out thi s ’ morning to try it upon me . I ll ‘ ’ ’ There . He s fully committed, interposed ‘ ’ the clerk . Take him away . ‘ ’ ’ 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 i ’ fr ghtened ; I won t show you no mercy, not ’ ’ a ha porth of it . You ll pay for this , my fine ’ I fellers . I wouldn t be you for something ; ’ wouldn t go free now, if you was to fall down on o ff your knees and ask me . Here, carry me to prison . Take me away . “ sufi ered With these last words , the Dodger off himself to be led by the collar , threatening,

the a rli am en ~ till he got into yard, to make a p the tary business of it , and then grinning in ffi ’ ” o cer s fa ce with glee an d self approval .

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 “ ” w armint : be a , says ‘ w o ut In g ol and out of gaol , in gaol and of a ’ g ol , 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 e i thin 7 Newga t l V .

out of and carted there, and put this town ’ an d 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 ,

- Summ un a thieving turnips fo r a living . had ' ’ w —a — run a ay from me man , a tinker and he d took the fire wi th him and left me very cold . ‘ I knowed my name to be Magwitch , christ ? ‘ en ed Abel . How did I know it Much as I ’ knowed the birds names in the hedges to be h ffi h c a n c . , sparrer, thrush I might have thought that it was all lies together, only, as ’ the birds names come out true, I suppose mine did ’ So fur as I could find , there warn t a soul that see young Abel Magwitch , with as little 0 11 at him as in him , but what caught fright

off . him, and either drove him or took him up t o I was took up , took up , took up , that extent ’ ’ r l rl r that I eg a y g owed up took up . One o f the most curious episodes of Newgate — is c onnected with the hanging of the Rev . W . 1 6 777 . Dodd, for forgery, on Friday, June , The clerical malefactor preached his own funeral sermon in the chapel of the prison before he was ' 2 V 3 . led out to die, the text being from Acts , The theatre of this remarkable valedictory

Ri ots went up in the smoke of the Gordon , but “ there is a chapel in the reconstructed jail : sit n a il with harles 58 I J C Dickens.

” ’ uated of , says Boz , at the back the governor s house ; the latter having no windows looking n i i to the inter or of the prison . Whethe—r the a ssociations 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 sti ll more gloomy and sombre air than art has imparted to it, we know not, but its appearance i s very striking . The meanness of its appoint — ments the bare scanty pulpit, with the paltry — ’ painted pillars o n 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 , a sc rcely legible through lack of paint, and dust an d — damp so unlike the velvet and gilding, the marble and the wood of a modern church t are strange and striking . There is one objec , 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 a fterward . Immediately below the reading d on esk, the floor of the chapel , and forming a i n Newg te W thi . 59

in the most conspicuous object the little area ,

‘ ' ’ is the c ondemned pen : A hugh black pen in which the wretched people, who are singled t out for dea h , are placed on the last Sunday e h e o pr ceding t eir ex cuti n , in sight of all their fellow prisoners , from many of whom they may have been separated but a week before , to hear

re prayers for their own souls, to j oin in the s on ses of p their own burial service, and to listen to an address warning their recent companions to take example by their own fate an—d urging themselves , while there is yet time nearly ‘ four-and - twenty hours —to turn and flee from ’ - n d the wrath to come . At one time a 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 ” r whole se v me. The chapel has been rear i n ranged since the time which Boz wrote, and th e ghastliest part of its show done away with . “ In the condemned ward Boz found fiv e~

- and twenty or thirty prisoners , all under sen of re tence death, awaiting the result of the corder’ s report—men of all ages and appear an ces ff , from a hardened old o ender with ’ s warthy face and grizzly beard of three days 60 I n a il wi th harles i ens J C D ck .

growth, to a handsome boy not fourteen years o ld an d o f , singularly youthful appearance even for that age, who had been condemned for bur ” gla ry . It must be remembered that they hanged men for all sorts of offenses in England then , which made the population of the con d emn ed ward abundant around sessions time, w th t hen e trials were on . The dea h penalty w a s as common then as it is now rare in its in “ fli i . ct on . The room was large, airy and clean One or two decently dressed men were brood ing with a dejected air over the fire ; several little groups of two or three had been engaged r in conversation at the uppe 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 Tes a t ment, but there were no tokens of its having

- been in recent use . In the press room below f were the men , the nature of whose o fense e r ndered it necessary to separate them, even r f om their companions in guilt . It is a long sombre room, with two windows sunk in the stone wall , and here the wretched men are pin 1oned m on the orning of their execution , before ff ” moving toward the sca old .

62 I n ai l with r J Cha les Di ckens. light as co uld struggle in between a double row

'of h v s I ea y, cro sed iron bars . t was in one of “ ” 52 h t these dens ( Oliver Twist, Chapter ) t a a F gin spent his last hours . “ They led him through a paved room under the c t i our , where some prisoners were w ait ng till their turns came , and others were talking e to their friends , who crowded around a gat which looked into the open yard . There was s nobody there to speak to him ; but, as he pa sed, the prisoners fell back to render him more vis ~ ible to the people who were clinging to the bars ; and they assailed him with opprobrious names , hi fi an d . s st screeched and hissed He shook , and would have spat upon them ; b ut his con d ucto rs hurried him on , through a gloomy pas

' sage lighted by a few dim lamps, into the inter I' fl ior of the p ISO . “ d Here he was searche , that he might not have about him the means of anticipating the law ; this ceremony performed, they led him to on of e e the condemned cells , and left him ther

“ a lone . “ 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 t o at him , the time, that he could not hear a h n 63 Newga te Wit i .

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 l was delivered . To be hanged by the neck, til — he was dead that was the end . To be hanged by the neck till he was dead . “ a As it c me 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 j oked , too, because they t died with prayers upon their lips . With wha a rattling noise the drop went down ; and how s uddenly they changed from strong and vigor~ ous men to dangling heaps of clothes . “ 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 me t n . mus have passed their last hours “ there It was like sitting in a vault strewn with dead — m bodies the cap , the noose, the pinioned ar s the faces that he knew , even beneath that hid c — ous veil . Light Light . “ At length, when his hands were raw with heatin g against the heavy door and walls, two : b men appeared one earing a candle, which he t hrust into an iron candle - stick fixed against the wall ; the other dragging a mattress on 4 I n ail wi th harles i e 6 J C D ck ns. w hich to pass the night ; for the prisoner w as to be left alone no more . “ — Then came night dark, dismal , silent night . Other watchers are glad to hear the clocks t da . strike, for hey tell of life and coming y To Je the w they brought despair . The boom of every iron bell came laden with one deep hol — , low sound Death . What availed the noise and bustle of cheerful morning, which pene trated ? even there, to him It was another

s form of knell , with mockery added to its warn

m . g — The day passed o fi day . There was no day ; it was gone as soon as come—and night came n t on again ; ight so long, and yet so shor , long t in its dreadful silence, and shor in its fleeting hours . At one time he raved and blasphemed ;

~ and at another howled and tore his hair . Ven c rable men of his own persuasion had come to t pray beside him , but he had driven hem away with curses . They renewed their charitable

ff o fi . e orts , and he beat them “ Saturday night. He had only one more d a night to live and as he thought of this , the y — , broke Sunday . “ It was not until the night of this last awful day, that a withering sense of his helpless , des t perate, despera e state came in its full intens ity upon his blighted soul ; not that he had ' ever b ut held any defined or positive hope of mercy, that he had never been able to consider more a i h 65 Newg te W t in .

than dim probability of dying so soon . He of t had spoken little to either the wo men, who relieved each other in attendance upon him ; ff to and they, for their parts, made no e orts b u arouse his attention . He sat there, awake, t

dreaming . Now he started up, every minute,

and with gasping mouth and burning skin , hur ried to and fro in such a paroxysm of fear and w rath that even they—used to such sights so recoiled from him with horror . He grew i n terrible, at last, all the tortures of his evil conscience that one man could n ot bear to sit tw o t there, eyeing him alone ; and so the kep

watch together . “ an d He cowered down upon his stone bed , 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 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

- — i w . n not burnt him up Eight ne ten . If it was i th l a tr ck to frighten him, and those were e rea ’ h hours treading on each other s heels , w ere

would he be, when they came around again ? ' f f Eleven Another struck, be ore the voice o the previous hour had ceased to vibrate . At

‘ t in eigh , he would be the only mourner his ow n. funeral train ; at eleven “ of Those dreadful walls Newgate, which had 5 J i wi h h r e i 66 I n a l t C a l s D ckens. hidden so much misery and unspeakable an u g ish, not only from the eyes , but, too often of and too long, from the thoughts , men , never held so dreaded a spectre as that . The few who t lingered as they passed , and wondered wha

- the man was doing, who was to be hung to mor row, would have slept but ill that night if they could have but seen him . “From early in the evening until nearly mid night, little groups of two and three presented

- themselves at the lodge gate, and inquired , with anxious faces, whether any reprieve had h been received . T ese being answered in the i ntelli negative, communicated the welcome c n ce g to the clusters in the street , who pointed o ut to one another the door from whi ch he mus t ff come out, and showed where the sca old would be built, and, walking with unwilling steps away, turned back to conj ure up the scene . o ff an By degrees they fell , one by one ; and for hour in the dead of the night, the street was left to solitude and darkness .

When Mr . Bro wnlow and Oliver appeared a d at the wicket, and presented an order of mission to the prisoner, signed by one of the

Sheriffs, they were immediately admitted to the lodge . “ The condemned c rl ml n al was seated on his a bed, rocking himself from side to side, with countenance more like that of a snared beast a it i n 6 Newg te W h . 7

than the face of a man . His mind was evident l w hi s fo r y andering to old life, he continued to of h mutter, without appearing conscious t eir r f p esence otherwise than as a part o his vi sion . ‘ ’ Fagin, said the gaoler . ’ ’ That s me, cried the Jew , falling, instantly into the attitude of listening he assumed upon ‘ A ld o ld . n o his trial man , my Lord ; a very m n ’ a . ‘ ’ u Here, said the turnkey, laying his hand p “ ’ on his breast to keep him down . Here s some to s body wants see you , to ask you some que u ou a tions, I s ppose . Fagin, Fagin , are y ’ man ? ‘ ’ ’ one I shan t be long, replied the Jew, look ing up with a face retaining no human expres ‘ sion but rage and terror . Strike them all dead ' What right have they to butcher me ? Since hanging by wholesale went out i n Eng

N e at land, wg e has had no use for condemned wards, nor for its great number of condemned

. now cells The former are broken up into , cells, ffi or used as exercise rooms or o ces . Most of in the latter are now punishment cells , which

m r refractory prisoners are confined . The de o alizin gsystem of c on fin ement in gangs has been done away with also , the cells in which the pris oners froze in cold weather have been made f comfortable, and the standard o the manage I n Ja h harl ic e 68 il wit C es D k ns.

ment of the jail raised in every way . Such prisoners as may be condemned to death fe in there are only a w a year now, where Dick ’ en s s boyhood there were several every week a re kept apart from their fellows and from each other . They are confined in an ordinary cell until they are convicted . Then they are trans ferred to a strong cell in the old condemned e seafl c ll ward, and thence they travel to the ld o . Between the Old Bailey Court House and the c c ndemned ward of New gate is a yard called the Press Yard . The name has a hideous ori gin . This spot was for many years the scene of one of the most terrible tortures ever ih fli cted 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

. s refused to answer in court Nowadays , thi n would be construed into contempt of court . U til a century ago it was held an offense so hide ous as to warrant death by torture . Nowa days we do not ask a prisoner to criminate him

e . s lf Then , if he did not, he was tortured ; if he did he was punished anyway . The prisoner

r s 70 In Jail wi th Cha les Dicken .

under sanction of the law . It is here that the executions of Newgate are performed . The ga llows 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 i n

f r most o o u own jails . The doomed man gets

' his last glimpse of the sky th ro ugh a stone fun ~ nel down which no ray of sunlight ever finds its A . s way far as I remember, from my London days , the only sign the outer world h as of the work going on within the prison walls is the

an d hoisting of a black flag over the lodge, I know not if even this ceremonial is still oh served . From the gallows to the grave in New l gate used to be but a step . There wa s an o d u b rying ground in the prison , now disused , 1 2 T hi stle o o d which was opened in 8 0 . w and the other Cato Street Conspirators were the n first crimi als buried in it . They were buried in the night on the day of their execution , with af out services , and many others like them in ter years . A pit and a shroud of quicklime were the appropriate Newgate epitaph.

The ingenious fancy of Mr . Ainsworth has ’ made Jack Sheppard s escape from Newgate one of the chief episodes of his famous book . The ew ate i thin 1 N g W . 7

’ simple facts of his hero s evasion from the gaol

are much less romantic , considering the num

ber of prisoners it held . The escapes from New a in g te were very few , and in almost every stance they owed a great measure of their suc ‘ cess to the connivance of o fli ci al s 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 f down . Each o ficial was an adept at the art of t extor ion , and every palm that held a key was Th troubled with the itch . e prisoner could pur

chase most things he might desire, and even the It chance of liberty was not beyond price . was only the chance to be sure ; his keeper would ff of wink at the e ort, but he must take the risk a being stopped upon his w y by others, unless he could fairly buy his passage from his dungeon —a — to the lodge gate . A few very few did h t is , and got away . Generally the escapes were m ere attempts , frustrated before the last bar A ri d er was passe . The most remarkable escape a a c c om m de from the prison , because it was pli shed without aid within or without the ruffian walls, was that of the Sweep . This , from l s e s 72 I n Jai l wi th Char e Dick n .

i a o practice in his trade of climbing ch mneys , t ually contrived to scale the rough stone wall in an angle of one of the jail yards , by working

W 1th himself up 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 New gate have been smooth ed a , so that even fly could not crawl up them an d spiked at the top to make assurance doubly sure . CHAPTER III .

I ON THE F LEET PR S .

ALF a century ago, a stroller about the London streets whose loiterings carried o him to the Fleet Market , could not but n tice in the brick wall that extended along w hat is ma r now entitled Farringdon street , facing the

- ket, a wide grated window , set in a framework U th e of granite blocks . nder arched top of the e the a a t framework , betw en it and gr ting, s one slab o r panel bore the carved inscription : “ Please Remember Poor Debtors , Having No ” Allowance . Through the grating one might

a ' rou h look into a squalid, dark room, with g wooden bench fastened to one wall , an d during the hours of daylight some miserable human

v a al creature, like a caged and star ed be st, ways glared from behind the bars upon the n street, repeati g, in the voice of wheedling mendicancy, the appeal cut in the stone above

. wmdow his head There was a broad sill to the , of and an opening in the bars, like those the 74 I n ai l with C arles icke s J h D n .

in counter windows a modern bank, through which the jailed beggar could pass out and draw in a wooden box, in which the charita bly inclined might drop an obolus as they passed

“ ” 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 t which they owed, was that among these deb o rs there were many whose absolute inability to pay was demonstrated by the fact that they would, literally, have starved there but for the r f of chance cha ity o the public . Apropos this m of point Dickens , in chapter xiv, volu e II , “ ” i : P ckwick, says “ ’ The poor side of the debtors prison is, as its t name impor s , that in which the most misera ble and abject class of debtors are confined . A prisoner, havin g declared upon the poor, pays eu neither rent nor chummage . His fees upon tering and leaving the gaol are reduced i n of amount, and he becomes entitled to a share some small quantities of food—to provide t n which a few chari ab le perso s have, from time to time, left trifling legacies in their wills . Most of o ur readers will remember that, until a very F r 75 The leet P i son.

k of i n few years past, there was a ind iron cage w as the wall of the Fleet Prison , within which to posted some man who, from time time, rat tled b ox a money , and exclaimed in a mournful ‘ ’ r voice : Pray remember the po or d ebto s. The e receipts of this box, wh n there were any, were men divided among the poor prisoners, and the on the poor side relieved each other i n this de

grading office . “ Altho ugh this custom has been abolished and

the cage is now boarded up , the miserable and destitute condition o f these unhappy persons l ff remains the same . We no onger su er them to appeal at the prison gates to the charity and compassion of the passers - by ; b ut we still have o ur - unblotted on leaves of statute book, for the reverence and admiration of the succeeding

d ~ ages, the just and wholesome law which e clares that the sturdy felon shall be fed and an d clothed, that the penniless debtor shall be to in t left die starva ion and nakedness . This r is no fiction . Not a week passes over o u heads

but, in every one of our prisons for debt, some of these men must inevitably expire in the slow of agonies want, if they were not relieved by ” their fellow prisoners . of The custom beggary at the prison gate, it

may as well be remarked here, was a relic of the . i s ancient prison of the Fleet, to which allusion i n o f ld made several the o English comedies . I n ail i th Charles c 76 J w Di kens.

i n i i n Leigh Hunt, his pleasant d w gat o s upon “ th London called The Town , remarks upon e practice in connection with Ludgate Prison, an d , 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 pau ~ pers of the prison , in what was known as the “ ” B x ca se man Running a . In this a ran to and fro in the neighboring streets to the prison , shakm ut g a box , and begging passengers to p 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 f the charitable might choose to spare o r him . Hard by the paupers ’ grating of the Fleet was i n a grimy and gloomy doorway, heavily framed 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

- c on London fogs and soft coal smoke, soon verted into the semblance of a thin glaze or var nish of liquid soot . The door stone was worn as in smooth as glass, and even the fairest weather

78 In Jail with Charles Dicken s.

“ him down a short flight of steps, and found self, for the first time in his life, within the ’ walls of a debtor s prison . The Fleet in those days consisted principally f o 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 n o wasted on the exterior of the structure, and sanitary ingenuity o r sentimental seeking after h t e. comfort of the inmates had been expended

o~ upon the interior . The one aim of the constru tors had been to so divide the space as to cram within it the greatest possible number of per

. T o sons this end, each floor was traversed by i “ a s ngle hallway or passage, a long narrow gal lery, dirty and low, and very dimly lighted by ” a window at each remote end, on either hand of which opened doors of innumerable single to rooms , which rarely, however, failed do duty as lodgings for less than several tenants . The

. to floors, as Mr Tom Roker explained Mr . The lee P ri son fi t . 79

Pickwick when he inducted him into the pris on , were distinguished as the hall flight, the

ff - fl tO co ee room ight, the third flight and the p

e flight . All the rooms on these floors wer let resum by the week, at prices adj usted to their p ed desirability and the capacity of the lessee ’ s d m purse, and governe by the nu ber of tenants who entered upon them .

The basement rooms , even , formed a source T o of revenue to the warden . his sunken st ry, which received its light from the flow -browed windows whose sills were level with the slabs of the prison yard, was known as Bartholo mew Fair . Here misery might welter in its offal at the fee of one - and - threepence a week if it still held itself above the abj ect degradation of the Common Side, whose inmates took their

u : t rn at begging at the grate . The Common h m m e Side was a building apart from t e a rang , which latter was known as the Warden Side .

r Here there was no rent to pay . The p isoners an bunked in gangs , like emigrants on ocean

1 passage . As to Bartholomew Fa r, let Dick it “ ” ens describe himself (vide Pickwick, chap ter xiii, volume II) : '’ . i in Oh replied Mr Pickw ck, look g down 80 In ai l with harles i c ens J C D k . a dark and filthy staircase which appeared to lead to a range of damp and gloomy stone ‘ a es v ults beneath the ground , And th e, I sup pose, are the little cellars where the prisoners keep their small quantities of coals ? Unplea s co ant places to have to go down to , but very n ’ ‘ eni nt ’ v e . , I daresay Yes , I shouldn t wonder ’

e e . if they was conv nient, repli d Mr Roker, ‘ seeing that a few people live there pretty ’ ‘ n h ’ ’ . a ' s ug Th t s the Fair, t at is My friend , ‘ ’ said Mr . Pickwick, you don t really mean to say that human beings live down these wretch ’ ? . ed dungeons replied Mr Roker, ‘ ’ with indignant astonishment ; why shouldn t ’ ‘ ’ r I ? Live down there ? exclaime d M . Pick ‘ ? . di e wick Live down there Yes , and down ’ there, too, wery often . o mi nall the ee N y , each prisoner in Fl t on the Warden Side was entitl ed to a room at the

1 s . 8d . e charge of a week Actually, how ver,

’ he never got one on any hoor above the level of

Bartholomew Fair . Each room was made to quarter from two to fo ur tenants in the space de signed for one, so that it, at full seasons , actu ally 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 sys tem produced another curious practice of pris ~ The F leet P rison.

on life . If one or more prisoners occupied a “ ” m room and another was chummed on the , they could buy him off by paying him a few shil lings a week, and so keep the room to them the selves . He, out of money they paid him, paid in his turn for inferior quarters el sewhere .

Thus, a prisoner who was willing to pay full fo r ofl an rent a room to the warden , and buy y

n : o e who might be chummed upon him, could have a dirty box of a chamber to himself, at the average cost of a fi rst - class parlor and bed room outside the walls . Prisoners who had been a certain number of years in th e jail had a prescriptive right to a room to themselves , and most of these rented the1r apartments at good rates to new comers, and took beds for t hemselves in the common lodgings . n F Whe Mr . Pickwick entered the l eet as a

1 he resident (vide volume II , chapter x v) was “27 ” chummed on in the third , whose door was to be distinguished by the likeness of a man

s being hung and moking a pipe the while , done in chalk upon the panel . Not liking his com pany of three here he, as may be recalled, rent of C ed the room a hancery prisoner, in which he settled down . For the use of this room he 6 ail wi h r e i en 82 I n J t Cha l s D ck s.

£1 h h paid a week, and for the furniture, w ich e 1 fi £ 3 s . . hired from a keeper, more These g ures may serve as an indication of the rates prevailing in the Fleet fifteen years before it was demolished . The episode of Mr . Pick wick’ s investigatory experiences in this con necti on is worth quoting, as a part of the pano man rama of prison life . There was only one i n the room upon which he was chummed , andhe was leaning out of the window as far as he u co ld without overbalancing himself, endeavor ing, with great perseverance , to spit upon the crown of the hat of a personal friend upon the ” parade below . He expressed his disgust at a h ving had the newcomer chummed upon him,

- and summoned his two room mates , who were a bankrupt butcher and a drunken chaplain o ut o f ex ecto rato r ~ orders , the p y gentleman him self being a professional blackleg . ‘ ’ It s an aggravating thing, j ust as we got ’ the beds so snug, said the chaplain , looking at the dirty mattresses , each rolled up in a blan ‘ o c c u i ed on e the d ur ket, which p corner of room i n gthe day, and formed a kind of slab on which were placed an old cracked basin , ewer and soap - dish of common yellow earthen ware with ‘ ’ a blue flower ; very aggravating . The F leet P rison 3 .

Mr . Martin (the butcher) expressed the same

i n . opinion , rather stronger terms “ ’ Mr . Simpson (the leg) after having let a variety of expletive adjectives loose upon so ci et y , without any substantive to accompany and to them, tucked up his sleeves began wash greens for dinner . “ P i ck mk While this was going on Mr . w had filthi l been eyeing the room, which was y dirty e no and smelt intolerably close . Th re was

of . vestige either carpet, curtain or blind There

in . U was not even a closet it nquestionably, there were but few things to put away if there one or had been , but, however few in number, in of small individual amount, still, remnants of loaves , and pieces cheese, and damp towels, of an d o f and scraps meat, articles wearing apparel , mutilated crockery, and bellows with o ut - nozzles , and toasting forks without prongs, do present somewhat of an un comfortable appearance when they are scattered about the

floor of a small apartment, which is the common sitting and sleeping room of three idle meux ‘I suppose that this can be managed some ’ how, said the butcher, after a pretty long ‘ ’ t ut silence . What will you take o go o ? ‘ ’ I beg your pardon , replied Mr . Pickwick ‘

? . what did you say ‘ I hardly understood you ‘What will you take to be paid out ?’ said the ‘ ~ ¢ butcher . The regular chummage is tw o an d ’ six ; will you take three b ob ? 84 In ail wi th harles ic ens J C D k .

’ An d ~ a bender, suggested the clerica l gen tl em n a . ‘ ’ ’ Well , I don t mind that ; it s only a tw o ’ ‘ . d pence apiece more, said Mr Martin ; What o ’ you say n ow ? We ll pay you out for three -and sixpence a week ; come ‘ ’ alll on m And stand a g of beer down, chi ed i ‘ ’ n . Ther Mr Simpson . e l ‘ ’ sa the And drink it on the spot, id chap ‘ ’ lain ; NOW ' “ After this introductory preface the three i n chums informed Mr . Pickwick, a breath, that money was in the Fleet just what money was o ut of it ; that it would instantly procure him a lmost anything he desired ; and that supposing he a n d no e i o s had it, had obj ct n to pend it ; if he only signified his wish to have a room to one himself, he might take possession of , fur ’ nished i n an and fitted to boot, half hour s time . “ 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 pru dence and foresight, had borrowed of him for the purpose . ‘ ’ a I knowed it , said Mr . Roker with chuckle, when Mr . Pickwick stated the object with ‘ ou which he had returned . Lord, why didn, t y

In ail with har e ns J C l s Di cke . arti cles of gin fo r their o wn profit and adv ant ” age . The spirit dispensaries were known i n “ ” - of. the jargon the jail as whistling shops , and w what ith 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 n ot dying for the want of sufficient food were perishing of a superfluity of drink The poor debtors who still had the price of ” - f a chamber pot of coals and a scrag o 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 f yard . In default of su ficient capital to this

o ff a o r end they must live bre d and cheese,

o r cold meat , hope, or, as many doubtless did, T c on the porter from the tapro om . o se ure the means of subsistence and indulgence they begged from the visitors . The sharper old resi o e dents borrowed from the shall wer newcom rs , e and , as a matter of cours , theft went hand in thi ha do hand with mendicancy . Of s s wy side of i n a picture, dark enough, all conscience, in its lightest spots , Dickens gives us a glimpse in

11 . chapter xi v of volume , where Mr Pickwick l P rison The F eet . 87

A on encounters Mr . lfred Jingle the Common

eb r : Side, and Mr . J Trotter, returning f om ’ of pawning his master s last coat, with a scrap ’ s o n meat for his dinner . And Mr . Jingle w summary of the prevailing state of things at that period and place may serve as a descrip tion of the condition and prospects of his neighbors . ‘ on — Lived —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 n e cessari esfi 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 . 1749 In the son of the architect , Dance, who built old Buckingham House and Guy’ s Hos

i . pital , was imprisoned n the Fleet for debt He “ wrote and published a poem ca lled The Humors ” of 1nterest the Fleet , which has an for com parison with what the prison became later . The book had a frontispiece showing the prison a y rd, 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 r and a tree . When the Fleet was ebuilt after e 88 In Ja i l with Charles Dick ns.

tw o the riots, there were exercise grounds with

n . on i the walls One, the smaller, was the side toward Farringdon street, denominated and “ ” a c lled The Painted Ground , from the fact of “ its walls having once displayed the semblances

f - of- o various men war in full sail , and other efl ects artistical , 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 t o the place, in which every prison is sure abound . Smokers and other idlers loitered about the steps leading to the racket ground , draining their pots as they watched the game . “ m n l Here Mr . S a g e made a light and who le ” some breakfast on a couple of cigars Mr . i P ckwick had paid for, and here Mr . Weller, with a pint of beer and the day before yester ’ day s paper, divided his time between dipping into the news and the noggin , the skittle game and the affections o f a young lady who was wm do ws on peeling potatoes at one of the jail , Sti in s that memorable morning when Mr . gg called upon him and sampled the port wine 89 The F leet P rison.

- ou in the cod ee room snuggery . Here y might hear the roar of the great babel without ; an d

“ from the same point see one or two of its ‘ ’ churches aspiring above the chevaux - de - frise

f - o 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 In of the world . chapter xvii volume II , Dick ens sketches a vivid picture o f the daily scene

- i n the jail yard . in os Sauntering or sitting about, every p i num sible attitude of l stless idleness, were a ber of debtors , the major part of whom were waiting in prison until their day of ‘going ’ r r up before the Insolvent Cou t should a rive, while others had been remanded for various e terms, which th y 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 i n the menagerie . Lolling from the windows which commanded a view of this promenade were a of er i nois number p sons, some n y conversation 90 In ai l with Charles ic ens J D k .

with their acquaintances below , and others playing bat all with some adventurous throw ers 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 u in fo ght, and played together another ; the tumbling of the skittles and the shouts of the players mingled perpetually with these and a an d hundred other sounds , and all was noise tumult .

To this picture of the Fleet by day, it is worth on e while to add of the after dark , from chapter xii, of volume II . “ 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 even ing which had set in outside . As it was rather wa rm some of the tenants of the numerous littl e rooms which opened into the gallery on either hand set their doors ajar . Mr . Pickwick peeped t into them , as he passed along, with curiosi y 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 - empti ed p ots of beer , or playing at all fours with a very greasy pa ck of cards . In the adjourning room some solitary tenant might be seen poring, by the e F l t P rison 91 Th ee . i of of l ght a feeble tallow candle, over a bundle t soiled and tattered papers , yellow with dus , and dropping with age, writing , for the hun d redth time, some lengthened statement of his grievances for the perusal of some great man whose eyes it would never reach, or whose man hea rt it would never touch . In a third a and his wife and a whole crowd of children might be seen making up a scanty bed on the o r r ground, upon a few chairs for the younge ones to pass the night in . And in a fourth , and a fifth, an d 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 h t ere, some because their rooms were foul and an d hot, 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 —a - about them all sort of listless , gaol bird , ’ a - careless sw gger ; a vagabondish , who s afraid sort of bearing which 1s wholly indescribable in in words , but which any man can understan d in a moment, if he wish, by setting foot the n Jail with ha rles i e s 92 I C D ck n .

’ nearest debtors prison, and looking at the very ” first group of people he sees there . The Fleet Prison was staggering along on its l ast l e s out m n ster h g , like some g y o w o se swollen joints were rotting asunder of internal corrup tion , when Dickens gave it a place in the fiction o f picturesque fact . But it had a long history B ehind 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 of un built . The exact date its foundation is known , but by various records it was formerly held in conj unction with the Manor of Leve “ ’ in i land, Kent, and w th the King s House at

I ail wi th harles i e s 94 n J C D ck n .

” 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 i n 2 18 5 . The fees belonging to the warden of the Fleet o fli cers and his , in the reign of Elizabeth, were A . n o r very heavy archbishop , duke duchess had to pay for a commitment fee and the first ’ “ ” 2 r £ 1 l 0s . o week s dyett, ; a lord, spiritual

l 0d . £5 £10 5s . temporal , a knight, ; an esquire, £8 d 6s . 8 ; and even a poor man in the wards, “ to that hath a part at the box , pay for his fee, 4 ” ’ a 7s d . h ving no dyett, The warden s charge “ ” for lawful license to go abroad was 2 0d . per diem . Thus , as may be seen, the fleecing and fla in s the y g , inhumanities and the injustices which characterized the later years of the prison were hereditary to it . From the reign of Elizabeth to the sixteenth of i 1641 year K ng Charles I , , the Star Chamber

Court was in full activity, and several bishops and other persons of distinction were im prisoned in the Fleet for their religious opin

. too ions Thither, , were consigned political o f t victims the Star Chamber, two of the mos interesting cases of this period being those of h e r T e F l et P i son . 95

o ut Prynne and Lilburne . Prynne was taken of ff the prison, and , after su ering pillory, brand of ing, and mutilation the nose and ears , was t —“ remanded o 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 West minister Hall and the Star Chamber ; and he was subsequently “ doubled ironed” in the prison wards . Another tenant of the Fleet at of this period was James Howel , the author the “ ” a F miliar Letters , several of which are dated “ from the prison . From a letter To the Earl 4 of . 20 16 3 B from the Fleet, Nov , , we gather that Howel was arrested “ one morning ” “ betimes by five men armed with swords , pis ” tols and bils , and some days after committed “ sa s a s to the Fleet ; and he y , 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 him self in the reflection that the English “ people” f are in e fect but prisoners , as all other islanders are . There other letters by Howel , dated from

i n 164 - 1 4 1 4 the Fleet 5 6 6 and 6 7 . I n ail with harles c J C Di kens.

4 1666 The prison was burnt on September , , during the Great Fire, when the prisoners were o r removed to Carom Caroon House, in South

Lambeth, until the Fleet was rebuilt on the original site . After the abolition of the Star 1641 Chamber, in , the Fleet had become a prison for debtors only, and for contempt of the Court o f Chancery, Common Pleas and Exchequer . I t appears that the prison had been used for the confinement of debtors from the 13 th cen

T raun c tury, at least, a petition from John y , 12 0 . 9 a debtor in the Fleet, A D . , being still preserved . When the Star Chamber was ’ abolished, the warden s power of exacting en ormous fees by putting l n 1rons 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 ” 16 exto r existing . In 96 the cruelties and the f tions o 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 excite A ment and horror it caused . Parliamentary

98 I n a il wi th C harles ic ens J D k .

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 cen turi es back . Although he does not deal spe cifi cally with the attack on the prison at this “ ” period, Dickens in Barnaby Rudge (volume

II , chapter ii) gives a brief but picturesque de scription of the surroundings of the gaol as they were at the time of the Gordon riots . “ Fleet Market at that time was a long, irreg ular row o f wooden sheds an d pent houses c c c upyi ng the centre of what is now called Far r n d n i g o street . They were j umbled together in a most unsightly fashion in the middle of the road to the great obstruction of the thorough fare 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, an d to jostle with porters hucksters, wagoners and a motley of a crowd buyers , sellers , pickpockets , vagr nts and idlers . The air was perfumed with the o stench f rotten leaves and faded fruit, the ’ refuse of the butchers stalls , and offal and gar bage 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 ison 99 The F leet r .

n of Further o , in chapter ix the same work, he summarizes a peculiar episode in the history of the gaol at the same period . “ 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 ann oun c ing that the rioters would come that night to t . oo burn them down The wardens , well knowin gthe likeliho od there w as 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 u in f rniture were occupied conveying it, some t o to this place, some to that, and not a few the ’ e brokers shops , wh re they gladly sold it for any wretched price those gentry chose to gi ve . There were some broken men among these e debtors who had been in gaol so long, and w re so of e miserable and destitute friends , so d ad to the world , and utterly forgotten and uncared for o , that they implored their gaolers not t set e them free, and to send them, if ne d w ere h to some other place of custody . But t ey to i th refusing comply, lest they should ncur e of e anger the mob , turned them into the str ets r where they wandered up and down , ha dly 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 slip ~ h ” s od feet along the pavement . In ai l with harles i 100 J C D ckens.

In of spite the concession of the Warden, the mob , as has been stated, burned the Fleet down , and it was i n the successor to the den which had risen on the ruins left by the great f fire o 1666 that Mr . Pickwick prosecuted his f studies o prison life and character . Among the curiosities of the London Arch ives are over a ton of books registering the Fleet 1686 17 4 h ar Marriages between and 5 , whic e i n f of the Registry O fice of the Bishop London , where they were deposited by the Govern

i n 1821 . ment, which purchased them These Fleet Marriages were the scandal and disgrace of ’ s their time . While they lasted the debtor e gaol was the Gretna Green of London . Ther weré no end of hard -living parsons flung into fo r men the Fleet debt, and as these were in always paupers purse, they were put to strange shifts to keep themselves in meat and r — i to con d ink especially the latter . The dea vert clandestine marriages into a source of i men ho i ga n, once originated, with w had ne ther n ot money, character or liberty to lose, was i n long spreading . At first the ceremony was r pe formed within the prison chapel . Then they became too numerous and the business

a with r i e 102 In J il Cha les D ck ns.

h swearing parsons, with their myrmidons, w o wear black coats an d pretend to b e clerks and of ho registers the Fleet, and w ply about r t Ludgate Hill , pulling o forcing people o some peddling ale -house or brandy shop to b e married ; even on a Sunday stopping them as they go to church and almost tearing the ff ” clothes o their backs . in Competition the business was fierce . While the Fleet parsons sent their pullers -ih to forth scour the streets , they hung their signs o ut in the windows under the shadow of of one t the prison wall . Thus at corner migh “ be seen a window, Weddings performed here ” cheap . The business was advertised in the newspapers . The marriage taverns lined Fleet of — Lane and Fleet Ditch . Two them the Bull and Garter and the King’ s Head—were kept by warders of the prison . The parson an d the landlord divided the fee between them, after deducting a shilling for the tout who brought the customers in . If a mariage was de sired 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 rofli ate man tavern kept . Thus a p g could vic The Fleet P rison. 103

M en n d timize a confidin ggirl with impunity . a an women might commit bigamy at will , since y to name they chose give , along with their fee, satisfied the parson , and they could have the “ ” o r ceremony kept unregistered , dated back as they chose . The law held a married woman

‘ f her d ebts free o the responsibility of , while a single woman could be arrested and locked up to fo r them . All a woman of free life had do to defraud her creditors was to get some man

‘ n to marry her at the Fleet . Then she could ot be prosecuted . As for the man , the creditors had to find him before they could proceed against him . Women of quality who had led extravagant

not lives did hesitate at the same shift . There were parsons who kept husbands in hire at fiv e shillings each There is record of one fe llow ” having been married to four women i n one

. of day There is also a record women, dressed ut as men, being hired o 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 é market ; rou s fetched their silly, girlish vic tims in coaches to the altar reeking of stale h r es ic ens 104 I n Jail wit Cha l D k . beer and brandy ; and great men of the realm utilized the functions of the clerical m—ounte banks to a similar result . In five months from 1704 1705 October, , to February, mar ri ages were recorded at the Fleet . How many went unrecorded can only be surmised . The in i th church strove vain to erad cate e scandal , and it required an Act of Parliament to put an nd 4 e to it in 175 . The Fleet marri ages provided Di ckens with no i di stin mater al , although other and less g ui shed romancers have found use for them, r f s with more o less e fect . In fact, Dicken rare l “ y wrote without a distin ct object, and in Pick ” i a wick, desultory and rregul r as the thread of the i s a narrative , he had such purpose when he took the Fleet i n hand . At the time he wrote of 183 6 it ( ) the monstrosity was at its worst . The prevalent system of imprisonment for debt rendered the hideous gaol a tool at the hands of in h a vengeful enemy, and t ose of a rapacious and dishonest man . The outrages to which it f lent itself, at the call o swindling lawyers and to at commercial extortioners, had commenced tract public attention . That the chapters on “ ” the F leet in Pi ckwick bore a share in arous

CHAPTER IV .

THE M L ARSHA SEA. — T was a good seven years o ran evil seven

for many a poor debtor, after the Fleet was o ut of u legislated existence, before its yo nger brother on the other side of the river followed fi i t. The Marshalsea was not of cially abolished 1849 the until , and even then it escaped doom o f out to and ro extinction meted the Fleet, p longed its materl al 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 o f being miserable in freedom from the restrain

- o f barred wm dow s and spike topped walls .

Of the prison, Dickens sketches a good des cripti o n 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 on St . George, in the borough of Southwark, the

- f left hand side o the way going southward, Marsh lsea 1 The a . 07

an the Marshalsea Prison . It was oblong i pile of barrack buildings, partitioned nto t so squalid rooms standing back o back, that there were no back rooms ; environed by a nar~ ro w paved yard , hemmed by high walls duly n s e and spiked o the top . It elf a clos confined fo r prison debtors, it contained within it a much closer and more confined gaol for smug l r ff s g e s. O enders against the revenue law , t r ho and defaulters o the excise o customs , w had incurred fines which they were unable to to b e pay, were supposed be incarcerated

- hind an iron plated door, closing up a second f r t nd prison , consisting o a strong cell o w o , a and a i a blind alley some yard half w de, which formed the mysterious termination of the very limited skittle ground i n whi ch the Mar hal e s s a debtors bowled down their troubles .

“ to Supposed be incarcerated there, because the time had rather outgrown the strong cells In and the blind alley . practice they come to too in be considered a little bad, though theory they were quite as good as ever ; which may be observed to be the case at the present d ay with other cells that are not at all and strong, with other blind alleys that are In ail wi th harles e 108 J C Dick ns.

stone blind . Hence the smugglers habitually consorted with the debtors (who received them with open arms) except at certain constitu ti onal moments when somebody came from ffi to o f some o ce, g through the form o over looking something, which neither he nor any n body else knew anything about . O these if an truly British occasions , the smugglers, y , made a feint of walking into the strong cells and the blind alley, while this somebody pre do a al tended to his something, and made re ity ’ of walking out again as soon a s he hadn t done it—nearly epitomising the administration of the most of the publi c affai rs in our o wn i h ” r g t, tight little island . The Marshalsea had several notable neigh of of bors i n its own line trade . One these i was Horsemonger Lane Gaol , the county ja l

- for Surrey . It was a sturdy, thick set prison , with a massive -looking lodge and powerful i on of walls . Execut ons took place the roof the lodge, the gallows being set up there, and the drop out i n the roof itself . These hangings in were a popular show their day, and the tenants of the houses across the way from the jail used to reap a harvest by letting

1 I n ail with harles c ens 1 0 J C Di k . boys and girls already assembled in the best places , made my blood run cold . As the n night went on , screeching and laughing a d on yelling, in strong chorus of parodies negro ‘ melodies , with substitutions of Mrs . Man ’ ‘ ’ ning for Susannah, and the like, were added to these . When the day dawned , thieves , low ruffian s of prostitutes, and vagabonds every on kind flocked to the ground , with every f ff variety o o ensive and foul behaviour . of Fightings , faintings, whistlings , imitations

Punch, brutal jokes, tumultuous demonstra tions 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 e thousands upon thousands of upturned fac s , so inexpressibly odious in their brutal mirth o r man callousness , that a had cause to feel a o f to shamed the shape he wore, and shrink i n of from himself, as fashioned the image 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 j udgment , no more restraint in any of the previous Obscenities than if the name of Christ had i n never been heard the world, and there was n o bel ief among men but that they perished lsea The Marsha .

of like beasts . I have seen , habitually, some the sources of general contamination and co r u r ption, and I think there are not many phases o f London life that could surprise me . I am solemnly convinced that nothing that ingenuity t could devise o be done in this city, in the same one compass of time, could work such ruin as public execution, and I stand astounded and appalled by the wickedness it exhibits . I do n ot believe that any community can prosper where such a scene o f horror and d emo rali za tion as was enacted this morning outside Horsemonger Lane Gaol is presented at the th e and very doors of good citizens , is passed by ” unknown or forgotten .

a s This letter created tremendou sensation, an d of con started a whole flood literature, demnatory and demanding the abolishment of public hangings ; but they were not finally done away with until nearly twenty years later . of f Apropos Horsemonger Lane, readers o “Little Dorrit” may recall that it was here a oh C hiv er s th t J n y re ided, assisting his “ mother in the conduct of a snug tobacco business, which could usually comman d a neat ”— connection within the college walls the co l lege being a polite title for the Marshalsea, i whose nmates were, by natural association , I Ja w h r i 112 n il it Cha les D ckens. technically known among themselves as col l i n eg a s . “ The tobacco business around the corner of Horsemonger Lane was carried on i n a rural one i th establishment story h gh, which had e benefit of the air from the yards of the

Horsemonger Lane Gaol, and the advantage o f a retired walk under the wall of that pleas ant establishment . The business was of too modest a character to support a life - sized High one on lander, but it maintained a little the o n bracket the door post, who looked like a fallen cherub that had found it necessary to take to a kilt . It was from the stock of this establishment

‘ that John C hi v ery produced the cigars of which he made a Sunday ofieri n g on the altar f f n ot o the Father o the Marshalsea, who “ only took the cigars and was glad to get ” “ n them, but sometimes even condesce ded to walk up and down the yard with the donor, ” I and benignantly smoke one in his society . t was also from this establishment that he issued “ on forth the memorable Sunday, neatly

i n - attired a plum colored coat, with as large a collar of black velvet as his figure could carry ; a silken waistcoat, bedecked with golden i c in in spr gs, a chaste ne kerchief much vogue

114 In a il with Charles i c ens J D k .

the blacking factory, where he was employed, i s to get h supper . The family got along quite ’ gayly while the elder Dickens s afi ai rs 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 semi

~ nary on Tenterden street, where his sister Fan n y was at school , and fetch her to spend the day i n the family circle, escorting her back in the evening . How freely he used his Marshalsea “ ” experiences in David Copperfield , and trans ferred to Mr . Micawber the actualities of his own family life, may be appreciated from the passage, written by himself and quoted by Fos ter, relating to his first visit to his father in the jail : “ f r My father was waiting o me in the lodge, and we went up to his room (on the top story n but o e) and cried very much , and he told me,

I remember, to take warning by the Marshal sea, and to observe that if any man had twenty pounds a year, and spent nineteen pounds nine a 115 The Marsh lsea.

and he teen shillings sixpence, would be happy ; but that a shilling spent the other way would sat b e make him wretched . I see the fire we now two in fore , with bricks the rusted grate, one on each side to prevent its burning to o many coals . Some other debtor shared the who in b -and -b an d as room with him , came y y ; ,

- the dinner was a joint stock repast, I was sent up to Captain Porter in the room overhead , ’ i . and w th Mr Dickens s compliments , I was his P son and . , could he, Captain , lend me a knife an d fork . Captain P . lent me a knife and i i fork, w th his compliments n return . There i in and two wan was a ,very d rty lady his room, f girls , his daughters , with shock heads o hai r . I thought I should not have liked to borro w ’ Captain Porter s comb . The Captain him as in of i self w the last extremities shabb ness , and at an ao if I could draw all , I would draw ‘ u o f o ld o ld e - c rate portrait the , brown gr at coat n hi he wore, with o other coat below it . His w s n kers were large . I saw his bed rolled up i a and n n h corner, what plates a d dishes a d pots e had on a shelf ; and I knew (Go d knows how) that the tw o girls with - the shock heads were ’ a s and C ptain Porter natural children , that n the dirty lady was ot married to Captain P . n My timid, wondering station o his threshold was not occupied more than a couple of min i the utes, I daresay ; but I came down nto room 1 In ail with harles Dic ens 16 J C k . below with all this as surely in my knowledge ” as the knife and fork were in my hand . It was into this familiar scene that Dickens introduced Mr . William Dorrit, a very amia

- ble and very helpless middle aged gentleman , “ Necessa who was going out again directly . i a rily he was going out again d rectly, bec use the Marshalsea lock never turned upon a deb in tor who was n ot . He brought a portman teau with him, which he doubted it worth while to — unpack, he was so perfectly clear like all on the rest of them, the turnkey the lock said

- that he was going out again directly . He

- was a shy, retiring man, well looking, though in n fi emin ate a e style ; with a mild voice, curl n and i — i s i g hair, rresolute hands r ng upon the ” w as fingers those days , not one of which left upon them a little while after—when the

in e ~ drunken doctor, fetched hast , ushered Lit the tle Dorrit into the world, with assistance

and . of Mrs . Bangham the brandy bottle The doctor was a type of one class of tenants to be ’ in found in every debtors prison . He lived a

- e wretched, ill sm lling room under the roof,

ff - who to with a pu y, red faced chum, helped i i and pass the time play ng all fours, with p pe

118 I n ail with harles i J C D ckens.

give Southwark its more familiar name ; had

- crossed a little court yard , ascended a couple of an d stone steps , traversed a narrow entry, been admitted by a string of locked doors into the

prison lodge . Here he had waited , as the form an d i of pract ce the proceeding required, until hi s i ti stafi who arr val was registered, and the p , had kindly guided and guarded his feet to this ha rbor of refuge from the cares o f the world fo r which works a living, had received a receipt fo r hi s i safe del very . Through another door at of i n the rear the lodge, which was built the a w ll of the jail itself, he was conducted to what was to be his home for half the lifetime allotted m n to a a . t mort l Before him was the jail cour , the the aristocratic court, where pump was ; and facing the lofty wall which divided it from r on to to the street, the bar ack, the next the p floor of which he found the shabby room in which the child of the Marshalsea was to be and born . Debtors were playing at racket skit in en tles the court, and grouped around the trance to the snuggery o r tap -room at the fur “ col ther end of the barrack . There were the legian in the dressing gown, who had no coat, the stout greengrocer collegian in the corduroy ZThe Marsha lsea kneeb re n hes e , who had no cares , the collegian no and i n the seaside slippers , who had shoes , n the lean clerk collegian i buttonless black, who had no hopes ; the man with many children s h and many burden , w ose failure astonished everybody ; the man of no children and lar ge a a resources , whose f ilure stonished nobody ; the people who were always going out to -mo r off row, and always putting it ; the slatternly n women at the windows , gossipi g shrilly, the smudgy children playing noisily ; all those peo in h not fo r ple fine w o belong to such a place,

o -b e getting the nondescript messengers , g tweens and errand runners , who formed a class ” v b themselves . ’ Every debtors prison had its corps of such attendants , who came and went in the service o f the inmates whose liberty ended at the lodge “ f door . The shabbiness o these attendants of upon shabbiness , the poverty the insolvent on w as waiters insolvency, a sight to see . Such threadbare coats and trowsers , such fusty n gowns and shawls , such squashed hats and b o l nets , such boots and shoes , such umbrel as and a w lking sticks , never were seen in Rag Fair . All of them wore the cast - off clothes of other i I n Jail wi th Charles D ckens. men and women ; were made up of patches and ’ of pieces other peoples individuality, and had f n o sartorial existence o their own proper . f Their walk was the walk o 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 forgot ten ou the doorsteps and draughty passages waiting for answers to letters in faded ink, which gave the recipients of those manuscripts great mental disturbance and n o satisfaction . i n A s they eyed the stranger passing, they eyed him — r with borrowing eyes hungry, sha p , spec ul ativ e as to his softness if they were ac ered

ited to a n d . him, the likelihood of his standing n m M d so methi g handso e . en icity on commis i n sion stooped their high shoulders , shambled i n their unsteady legs , buttoned and pinned and darned an d dragged their clothes , frayed

- their button holes , leaked out of their figures i n dirty ends of tape, and issued from their ” mouths in alcoholic breathings . In of spite occasional touches such as this , ’ the comparative brightness of Dickens s pic e of tur the Marshalsea, as contrasted with the

122 I n Jai l wi th Cha rles Dickens

” teri ous spiriting away of property in that . In ’ i D r . o rit f short , Mr Will am s a fairs were so tangled up that even the lawyers could n ot un ~ and twist them, and finally they gave him up , 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 6 “ “ (vide Chapter , Volume I , Little he ha d soon found a dull relief in it . He was under lock and key ; but the lock and key that kept him in u kept numbers of his troubles o t . If he had been a man with strength of purpose to face these troubles and fight them, he might have o r o broken the net that held him , br ken his heart ; but, being what he was , he languidly slipped into this smooth descent and never took one step upward . He had unpacked the port ma ntea u lo ng ago ; and his eld er children played e r gularly about the yard , and everyone knew an d the baby claimed a kind of, proprietorship ” n in her . The title conferred upon him by a tur e key he came to hear with pride, and under it h levied the tribute of selfish and ungrateful beg gary upon the goodnatured subjects over whom he presumed to rule . l Th Marsha lsea 123 e .

There was a certain snugness about the Mar h in s alsea which was not to be found the Fleet . There the company was too numerous and het In ero geneo us to form any social combination . the smaller prison a specie of club system was

- o r kept up . The tap room, snuggery, was a public room where meat and drink might be o fo r pr cured, and where a fire was maintained the use of the prisoners who did not wish to cook in their rooms . The furnace was kept fed by assessment o f those who used it . At the man own club, which met nightly, each paid his scot . The requisite for membership was the possession of the price of the potations served r to the member . The club was of indefinite p o portions and individuality . Its members came with the tipstaves an d went with the orders of release issued by the courts . The general form

” of its management was that which used to b e “ ” known as the free and easy . If any person o r present was a mimic, a singer, a musician , otherwise gifted with a pleasing or popular ao com li shment he p , might be called upon to dis it f r o . play the good Poor debtors, 'general who could do something to amuse, might have their beer free at the charge of the more sol In ai l wi th harles ic ens J C D k .

vent collegians whom they consented to divert . o f There is a legend a comedian , broken down who by drink, was sent to the Marshalsea and off who lived the fat of the jail for several years, until he died of it, all through the discreet ap plication o f his mimetic and comic powers in the snuggery club Once in a while the club u wo ld perform a piece of serious business . Sometimes it would draft a memorial against n th e impriso ment for debt to Throne or Judges , nel ther which Throne nor Judges saw or read , of course . Sometimes it would issue patriotic

o f manifestoes to Parliament, which Parlia ment remained equally ignorant . When a popular member secured his release the club would present him with a memorial , properly

n its . . e grossed and framed , of esteem Mr Dorrit received such a memorial when he came into his fortune and resigned his paternal su p remacy over the college ; and i n return he treated the whole jail to a refection in the Pump a Y rd, as you may read in the last chapter of the first volume of the record of his prison patri archy . But one drop of bitterness flavored the cup of the Marshalsea Club . Its festivities were limited by the public hours of the prison .

n il with C ar ic ens 126 I Ja h les D k .

in gentlemen boarders , lent his assistance mak

in . i n gthe bed He had been a tailor his time , ‘ and . had kept a phaeton , he said It was evi of dent, from the general tone the whole party, that they had come to regard insolvency as the f an d of normal state o mankind , the payment e ut d bts a disease that occasionally broke o . In this strange scene , and with these strange G spectres flitting about him, Arthur lenham looked on the preparations as if they were a f part o a dream . Pending the while the long an initiated Tip , with awful enjoyment of the ’ o ut Snuggery s resources , pointed the common kitchen fire maintained by subscription of the hot collegians, the boiler for water, supported i n and ~ the same manner, other premises gener ally tending to the deduction that the way to and to to be healthy, wealthy wise was come the Ma rshalsea . “ The two tables put together in a corner were , and at length, converted into a very fair bed ; the i a stranger was left to the W ndsor ch irs, e the presidential tribune, the be ry atmosphere,

a i eli hts i and . s wdust, p p g , sp ttoons repose But the last item was long, long, long in linking

to . itself the rest The novelty of the place , the coming upon it without preparation , the o f an d sense being locked up, kept him waking n to o n th e u happy . Speculations , o, bearing t the strangest rela ions towards prison , but i ran always concerning the pr son , like night he r ea 12 'T M a sha ls . 7

mares through his mind while he lay awake . Whether cohi ns were kept ready for peopl e who might die there , where they were kept, how i n they were kept, where people who died ho w out prison were buried, they were taken ,

~ what forms were observed , whether an impla cable creditor could arrest the dead ? As to e o f ? scaping, what chances were there escape Whether a prisoner could scale the walls with a cord and grapple ? How he would descend o n the other side ; whether he could alight on a. housetop, steal down a staircase, let himself o ut the ? at a door, and get lost in crowd As o ut to fire in the prison , if one were to break while he lay there ? “ 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 equi no cti al gales were blowing out at sea, and the m i partial southwest wind , in its flight , would not r s neglect even the nar ow Mar halsea .

While it roared through the steeple of St . ’ he i n George s church, and twirl ed all t cowls t the the neighborhood , it made a swoop to bea

Southwark smoke into the gaol and , plunging down the chimn eys of the few collegians who n ff t were yet lighti g their fires, half su oca ed them . “ Heartily glad to see the morning through lit 128 In ail with ha rles i c ens J C D k .

t tle rested by the nigh , he turned out as soon a s u he could disting ish 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 b e ginning o f seasickness to look up at the gusty sky . The rain , carried aslant by flaws of wind, blackened that side of the central building n ar which he had visited last night, but left a row dry trough under the lee of the wall , where he walked up an d down among the waifs of s traw and dust and paper, the waste drop pings 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 .

By the arrangement of the walls, all that the prisoners in the Marshalsea coul d see out o f doors was the sky . The view from the barred windows of the uppermost rooms was cut ofl by the higher line of the wall topped with its ’ - - Do rrit s chevaux de frise . But Little own ’ room, being in the Warden s house, had a some “ what freer prospect . A garret and a Marshal sea garret without compromise was Little Dor ” “ ’ s rit s room, but the housetop and the distant country hills were discernible over the walls ” in the clear morning . Sin ce the prison has

130 In Ja il wi th Cha rles ickens D .

left, very little altered, if at all , except that the walls were lowered when the place got free ; will look upon t he rooms in which the debtors lit ed ; and will stand among the crowding ” ghosts of many years . 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 ‘ o fl n e ses on the high seas . Some authorities place its foundation as far back as the Twelfth

Century . It was a prison of considerable ex in 1877 of tent , when a mob sailors broke into it and murdered a gentl eman who had been incarcerated there for killing one of their com

- rades in a pot house brawl . Three years i n later, Wat Tyler, the course of his rebellion , seized and hanged the Marshal of the Marsh f alsea . The o ficial title of the Warden of the prison was , by the way, Marshal . When Bishop Bonner was deprived of his see of Lon R don for his adherence to the Church of ome , he was sent to the Marshalsea . He lived there 1569 ten years , and there dying, in , he was ’ buried at midnight in St . George s Church hard The Ma h l a 1 rs a se . 13

o by . This ancient prison occupied an ther site on the same street as the later structure . U i t nder Henry VIII , Mary, and Elizabeth, was the second prison in importance in London ,

~ being inferior only to the Tower . Here Chris to her p Brooke, the poet, was confined for being

i n . e concerned the wedding of Dr Donn , and here George Wither was a pr1soner for one of his satires against the Government a ggres f sions and the abuse o the royal prerogative . The Nonconformist confessors were divided a the up among the Southw rk prisons, and Mar shal sea received its share of them . John U a dall, the Puritan m rtyr, fell a victim to its gaol fever . Its blight extended through many generations, and the shadow of its walls darkened many useful lives fo r no crime worse than the accident of failure that may come to any man . A false system ground its abject h in s abb ess, its haggard anxiety, and hopeless r t stupo of energies , into natures that migh , con but for it, have triumphed over care, and verted the defeat of to - day into the victory “ o a of t morrow . Ch ngeless and barren , look ing ignorantly at all seasons with its fixed, pinched face of poverty and care, the prison 132 In ai l with harles ic e J C D k ns. had not of of e a touch any thes beauties in it . i Blossom what would, its br cks and bars bore ” uniformly the same dead crop . “ ” Long before Little Dorrit was projected , Dickens introduced the Marshalsea to his readers ; even before he introduced the Fleet, indeed . The ceremony was performed i n 2 1 “ i ” Volume I chapter of the P ckwick Papers , in the sketch called “ The Old Man ’ s Tale about th ” e ' ueer Client . Here is the passage “ In the Borough High street, near St . ’ n f George s Church, and o the same side o the a way, stands, as most people know , the sm ll ’ — est of o ur 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 o ut but little temptation to the extravagant o r consolation to the improvident . The con demned felon has as good a yard for air and exercise in Newgate as the insolvent debtor i n the Marshalsea Prison . “ a can It may be my fancy, or it may be th t I not separate the place from the old rec o llec ~ tions associated with it, but this part of Lon don 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 traffi c re

CHAPTER V

’ HE KING B N T S C . g E H

N the “Pickwick Papers” the Fleet Prison was made to serve as an important feature “ ” of In the story . Little Dorrit, the story as its far as human interest, humor and pathos r h a e t e . Th concerned, centres in Marshalsea e ’ “ introduction of the King s Bench into David ” a Copperfield is entirely episodic, but it m kes on e of in the most brilliant chapters the book, a and, from its personal connection with the u ’

on e . thor s own life, of the most important That Di ckens drew largely on his own experience “ ” fo r the material in David Copperfield has been abundantly shown by many commenta tors . Without being an autobiography, the book gives one many glimpses into the real life of its author . He transfers scenes and changes a n mes a trifle, as he was fond of doing, but the private memoranda furnished by him o f hi s early toil and trials afford a key to much “ ” that one reads in Copperfield in the flimsy T ’ 5 t he Ki ngs Bench. 3

f . disguise o fiction Thus , he adapts the knowl w r edge of the Marshalsea, hich he acqui ed to while his father was a prisoner there , the fictitious figure and fortunes of o ld Dorrit ' ’ on . and he bestows Mr Micawber, in the Kings

Bench, the traits displayed by his father in the

‘

Marshalsea . A recent compiler of odds and

n ~ e ds of Dickens personalia, sapiently under takes to show that the elder Dickens must have been incarcerated in the King’ s Bench and not M i in the Marshalsea, because Mr . caw

U fo r ber was locked up there . nfortunately this arrangement, Dickens himself had dis in l t ct y disproved it i n advance . Some years “ ”— before he wrote C opperfield pro—bably b e fore he even thought of writing it he jotted of down a number of personal facts, many which ’ were used in Forster s biography . These notes “ ” in demonstrate positively that in it, as 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 fa shion on the inventions of his fantasy At the very commencement ’ “ of the King s Bench interlude in David C op ” perfield this becomes apparent . th r e 13 6 In Jai l wi Cha les Di ck ns.

’ f At last Mr . Micawber s di ficulties came to a crisis , and he was arrested one morning and ’ ca rried 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 , after wards , that he was seen to play a lively game of skittles before noon . “ On the first Sunday after he was taken there I was to go and see him and have dinner with

. w a him I was to ask my y to such a place, and just short of that place 1 should see such a another place, and just short of th t 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 t a li tle fellow th t 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 . “ 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 six nineteen pounds , nineteen shillings and he pence, would be happy, but that if he spent twenty pounds one he would be miserable .

l i ar e i e s 138 I n Jai w th Ch l s D ck n . timid station on the threshold was not o c cu pied 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 ” i n my hand . ’ Compare this with Dickens s description of his actual visit to his father i n the Marsh ff f alsea . The di erence is only that o a slight rounding o ff or modifying of a sentence in the “ ” Copperfield version . In the case of Captain a Hopkins , whose re l name was Captain Porter, one may note how the actual suggested the r fictitious title . The association between porte and hops is evident and direct . The real ex ’ eri en ces of in p the Dickens s , at this period, ut of and o jail , parallel those credited to the M icawbers . Mrs . Dickens and the family camped in Grower street just as Mrs . Micawber and the children camped in Windsor Terrace . The Dickenses even had a workhouse girl for s and servant, like the Micawber , 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 ex ample : ’ e Kin e h Th gs B nc .

Drcxe ns DAV ID C OP P ERF I ELD . CHARLES .

M i ca At last my mother At last Mrs . w and her encampment in ber resolved to move e Gow r street north, into the prison, where broke up and went to Mr . Micawber had to live in the Marshalsea . now secured a room S The key o f the house to himself . o I took was sent back to the the key of the house to the who landlord, who was very landlord , glad to get it ; and I was very glad to get

(small Cain that I was , it ; and the beds were except that I had never sent over to the King’ s done harm to anyon e) Bench, except mine, was handed over as a for which a little room lodger to a reduced old was hired outside the lady, long known to our walls in the neigh b o rho o d a i n family, in Little Col of th t e stituti on lege street, Camd n , very much k town . I felt eenly liv to my satisfaction , ing so cut o ff from my since the Micawbers to o parents , my brothers and I had become o and s i s t e r s . One used t one another Sunday night I remon i n our troubles t o strated with my father part The O rflin g e on this head, so pathet was likewise a com i cally and with so mo dated with an inex~ i n many tears, that his pensive lodging the kind n a t u r e gave same neighborhood .

away . A back attic Mine was a quiet back a was found for me at garret, with slop the of an house insol ing roof, commanding 4 In ail with harles D e s 1 0 J C ick n .

- who f vent court agent, a pleasant prospect o i n in n d lived Lant street, a timber yard ; a the Borough , where when I took posses of re Bob Sawyer lodged sion it, with the fl n many years after ecti o that Mr . Mi ’ r wards . A bed and cawb e s troubles had bedding were sent come to a crisis at and over for me made last, I thought it quite

o n . up the floor The a paradise . little window had a pleasant prospect of a timber yard ; and when I took possession of my new abode I thought it was a para dise .

o As Dickens told F rster, his family had no f n want o bodily comforts i the Marshalsea . ’ His father s income, still going on , was amply u fi s f cient 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 f ’ o . 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 i n the prison than they had

142 I n ail with harl s ickens J C e D .

Orflin gmet me here sometimes , to be told some astonishing fictions respecting the wharv es can and the Tower ; of which , I say no more than I hope I belie ved them myself . In the even ing 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 . Charles Dickens ’ s father’ s “ attempts to avoid i “ go ng 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 “ h r e family had decided that Mr . Micawber should apply for his release under the Insolvent

Debtors, Act, which woul d set him free, she

SI' . expected, in about weeks The elder

Dickens , while awaiting his discharge from the Marshalsea , had drawn up a petition to the throne for the appropriation o f 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 “ b e Dickens in his autobiographical jottings , cause it illustrates to me my early interest in observing people . When I went to the Marsh

o f to alsea a night, I was always delighted ’ Be c 4 The Ki ngs n h. 1 3 hear from my mother what she knew about the histories of the different debtors in the prison and when I heard o f this approaching cere mony, I was so anxious to see them all come in on e after another (though I knew the greater part of them already, to speak to , and they me) ,

e on that I got leav of absen ce purpose, and established myself in the corner near the peti tion . It was stretched out , I recollect , on a great ironing board, under the window , which i n another part of the room made a bedstead at night . The internal regulations of the place, for cleanliness and order, and for the govern

- u ment of a common room in the ale ho se , 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 ffi the time being . As many of the principal o cers of this body as could be got into the small i n room without filling it up supported him, of front the petition ; and my old friend, Cap tain Porter (who had washed himself to do honor to the solemn occasion) , stationed him t all self close to it, o read it to who were I n ail with harles ic ens 144 J C D k .

unacquainted with its contents . The door was then thrown open , and they began to come in , i n . long file, several waiting on the landing ‘ afli xed outside, while one entered, his signa

~ ture, and went out . To everybody in succes ‘ sion Captain Porter said ' Would you like to ’ hear it read ? If he weakly showed the least t a disposition to hear it, Captain Por er, in loud , I a . sonorous voice, g ve him every word of it remember a certain luscious roll he gave to such words as Majesty—gracious Majesty ’ your gracious Majest y s unfortunate subjects ’ — — - your Majesty s well known munifi cen ce as if the words were something real in his mouth, and delicious to taste ; my poor father mean ’ while listening with a little of an author s vanity , and contemplating (not severely) the spikes on the opposite wall Whatever was

a ~ comical in this scene, and whatever was p thetic, 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 . n ot I might be able to do that now, more truly ; m ore earnestly or with closer interest . Their

In ai l with harles icke s 146 J C D n .

petition to the club , and the club had strongly

. Mi approved the same . Wherefore Mr caw

- ber (who was a thoroughly good natured man , and as active a creature about anything but his ow n afl ai rs h as ever existed, and never so appy as when he was busy about something that could never be any profit to him) set to work at im the petition , invented it, engrossed it on an

~ mense sheet of paper, spread it out on the ta ble, 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 . “When I heard of this approaching cere mony, I was so anxious to see them all come in , on e after another, though I knew the greater a 1 ot p rt of them already , and they me , that g an hour’ s leave of absence from Murdstone ’ Grin b s ~ and y , and established myself in a cor ner for that purpose . As many of the princi pal members of the club as could be got into the small room without filling it supported Mr . w Micawber in front of the petition , hile my old friend Captain Hopkins (who had washed him self to do honor to the solemn occasion) sta ti on ed himself close to it , to read it to all who were unacquainted with its contents . The door

o ula ~ was then thrown open , and the general p p tion began to come in , in a long file ; several f waiting outside, while one entered , a fixed his signature, and went out . To everybody in suc ‘ cession Captain Hopkins said : Have you read ’ I e n B ench 14 h Ki gs . 7

’ ‘ ’ t ’ it ? No . Would you like o hear it read ? If he weakly showed the least disposition to Ho k1ns hear it, Captain p , in a loud, sonorous voice, gave him every word of it . The Captain would have read it times if peo

one on e. ple would have heard him, by I re member a certain luscious roll he gave to such ‘ ’ phrases as the peoples representatives l n Par ’ ‘ liament assembled, your petitioners therefore ’ ‘ approach your honorable house, His Gracious ’ ’ s Majesty s unfortunate subjects , as if the word were something real in his mouth and delicious

a . to t ste, Mr Micawber, meanwhile, listening ’ with a little of an author s vanity and c ontem x plating (not severely) the spikes on the oppo site wall . “As I walked to and fro daily between South wark and Blackfriars , and lounged about at c of meal times in obs ure streets , the stones t which may, for any hing I know , be worn at m this moment by y childish feet, I wondered how many of these people were wanting in the crowd that used to come filing before me in re ’ a to view ag in , the echo of Captain Hopkin s to voice . When my thoughts go back now o of that sl w agony my youth, I wonder how much of the histories I invented for such peo ple hangs like a mist of fancy over well - remem ld bered facts . When I tread the o ground , I n ot o do wonder that I seem to see and pity, g in on an i g before me, innocent romant c boy, 148 In ail with harles ic e s J C D k n . making hi s imaginative world out of such ” strange experiences and sordid things . The fortunate acquisition of a legacy of con siderable amount released the elder Dickens “ In from the Marshalsea . due time Mr . Mi caw ’ b fo r an d er s petition was ripe hearing, that gentleman was ordered to be discharged under ’ the Act . Mr . Micawber returned to the King s h Bench w en his case was over, as some fees to oh were be settled, and some formalities served, before he could be actually released . e The club r ceived him with tran sport, and held a harmonic meeting that evening in his honor ; ’ in while M rs . Micawber and I had a lamb s fry h i ” i t e . pr vate, surrounded by sleeping fam ly But you may read all there is to be read of the Micawbers and the King’ s Bench i n the first “ ” of 1 volume David Copperfield , Chapters 1 12 and , and compare it, if you choose, with the “ ea rly passages of The Life of Charles Dick ” ens, by John Forster, Volume I . Di ckens ’ s presentations of the Fleet and the o f Marshalsea had, it will be noted , the interest description as well as of personal association - with the characters of the stories for which ’ TheKin s they provided a part of the scenario . g

150 In Jail with Charles ic e D k ns.

s cerated there . But, after the Fl eet and Mar shal sea n o , its familiar features made appeal t r o him . What could he say o write of it that had n ot been said or written by him already ? 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 n much less wretched than the Fleet . It was e

-fiv e closed by a wall thirty feet high, garnished

the - - en with usual chevaux de frise, and was tered through a stone lodge three stories in height . The jail buildings themselves carried 2 50 four stories , and were broken up into nearly ‘ - o fli rooms , with a chapel , and out buildings for ci als 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 cer tainly 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

fl - and its co ee room , its poor side and its pay a side, and its club , which nightly, over pipe and pot, forgot for a few hours that the jail yard

- - was not all out of doors . The prison derived ’ n 151 The Ki ngs Be ch.

its title from the fact that it was the gaol of

the High Court of Justice, over which royalty So it was supposed to sit as supreme judge . became the ' ueen ’ s Bench when England was r ruled by a queen , and unde the Common

n ot reco nl zed wealth, when royalty was g , bore

the name of the Upper Be nch Prison . The original King’ s Bench Prison was si t uated in Southwark as early as the reign of

Richard II . It was broken into and sacked at who by the Kentish rebels under W Tyler, , on to this occasion, performed a similar service l the o d Marshalsea close at hand . It was to the King’ s Bench that Chief Justice Gascoigne so e of intrepidly committed the Princ Wales, afterward Henry V ; and down to the time of Oldys the room in which the wild young crony o f ff hi s i n was Sir John Falsta spent term gaol , ’ e r known as the Prince of Wal s s Chambe . The ’ old King s Bench seems to have been a decided l - 1 y easy going jail . In 579 we learn from the chronicles that the prisoners used to eat in a lit low l tle parlor next the street, and that they a ways had an audience staring at them through the barred windows , such as nowadays honors of i the repasts the wild beasts n the zoo . Dur 152 I n Jail with Charles Di ckens. ingthis year the prisoners petitioned for an en f largement o the prison and for a chapel , both o f whi ch requests seem to have been granted . ’ c Defoe, who sampled the King s Ben h 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 ” s . Bench was only the name of a pri on Indeed, the license of the seventeenth and the eigh ’ teenth centuries in the King s Bench would be hardly credible to persons accustomed only to the rigid discipline of modern jail management . ’ am In all the debtors gaols of this period, the g bler 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 free dom of entry from without made worse de b aucheri es than those of the bottle easy of i n dul n ge ce. At certain periods of their history the prisons seem to have been nothing less than

a - v st bagnio taverns, only the restriction upon the egress of the debtors distinguishing them au from the common resorts of the town . The thoriti es of the jail were not supersensitive in h i i t e r moral ty, provided their purses were kept

1 4 I n ai l with harles ic e s 5 J C D k n . the prison from the days of Wat Tyler down to 1862 ut , when the last debtor passed o at the . d ’ lo ge 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 t of 1780 at ack by the rioters, the old site was abandoned and another chosen for the rebuild in f n f ’ g o the jail . In o e o Dickens s last strolls

~ in Southwark, he noticed the fact that no ves ’ tige of the King s Bench remained , but that a hugh structure devoted to model homes for workingmen redeemed its unlamented grave from the uselessness which had made it a blight 14 f l during many centuries . In Chapter o V o 2 “ i ” ume of N cholas Nickleby, by the way, Dick ens adverts to a feature of the law of which the ’ of King s Bench was one the outgrowths , in connection with the first visit of Nicholas to

Madeline Bray . “ h r l The place to which Mr . C ee yb e had di rooted him was a row of mean and not over ‘ ’ of cleanly houses, situated within the Rules ’ the King s Bench Prison , and not many hun dred paces distant from the obelisk in St . ’ ~ George s Fields . The Rules are a certain lib r so me e ty adj oining the prison , and comprising dozen streets in which debtors who can raise ’ e h 1 The Kings B nc . 55

to money pay large fees , from which their cred i r to s do not derive any benefit, are permitted to reside by the wise provisions of the same en lightened laws which leave the debtor who can a r r ise no money to sta ve in gaol , without food, h clothing, lodging, or warmth, whic are pro v i ded for felons convicted of the most atrocious crimes that c an disgrace humanity . There are many pleasant fictions of the law in constant but a operation , there is not one so , ple sant or practically humorous as that which supposes every man to be of equal value i n its impartial

“ of eye, and the benefits all laws to be equally ref obtainable by all men , without the smallest erence to the furniture of their pockets . “ To the row of houses indicated to him by Mr . C heer bl e Charles y , 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 -fish r which minor theatricals , shell , ginge ’ beer, spring vans , green grocery and brokers

' shops appeared to c—ompose the main and most prominent features he at length arrived with s a palpitating heart . There were small garden whi ch b ein in in the front , gwholly neglected all e other respects , served as littl pens for the dust i n co r to collect , until the wind came around the ner and blew it down the road . Opening the on rickety gate which , dangling its broken i e one f i an d h nges, b fore o these, half adm tted 156 I n ail with harles ic ens J C D k . h i alf repulsed the visitor, N cholas knocked at t e h street door with a faltering hand . “ in It was , truth , a shabby house outside, with very dim parlor windows an d very small of show blinds , and very dirty muslin curtain dangling across the lower panes on very loose

. a and limp strings Neither, when the door w s opened, did the inside appear to belie the o ut ward promise, as there was a faded carpeting o n the stairs and faded oil -cloth in the passage ; i n addition to which discomforts a gentleman Ruler was smoking hard in the front parlor h of (t ough it was not yet noon) , while the lady the house was busily engaged in turpentining the disjointed fragments of a tent-bedstead at of if i n the door the back parlor, as preparation for the reception of some new lodger who had ” been fortunate enough to engage it . ’ 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 Mar. halsea w as to s . There the prisoner supposed remain a close prisoner within the walls until In how the courts ordained his release . fact , ever, if he had money he might buy sly periods i of liberty under the eye of the keeper, and th s abuse of his office brought the Marshal and hi s subordinates many a sovereign above their lo ne n gitimate emoluments . O young gentlema

1 n ai l with harles Di c ns 58 I J C ke .

o e e c pr perly receipted for, but th r are su h things (as double bedded rooms in New Yo rk

~ . a hre hotels In the same w y , it is s wdly sus ected h a p , prisoners in Ludlow street w o can p y n for it can enjoy a night out o ce in a while . It used to be so at least ; an d by the evidence brought out by investigations in the past it was n ot an e ~ even unusua l o ccurrence . It is p pu larl t a e y believed, by the way, h t th re is no such thing in New York state as imprisonment for S m th debt . o e nativ e realist in e line of fiction ought to take a turn over to the east side of the commercial metropolis of the United e i n s States , and w ave his exper e ce of the Lud low street ca ge into some such shape as Dick hi s e a and ens did of the Fl et, the M rshalsea, n ’ the Ki g s Bench .

l rles e 162 In Jai with Cha Dick ns.

What is this dismal -fronted pile of bastard ’ Egyptian, like an enchanter s palace in a melo drama ? A famous prison called the Tombs . Shall we go in ? “ “ S0 . A long, narrow and lofty building, s - o i tove heated as usual , with f ur galler es , one t and o above the other, going round i , c mmuni cating by stairs . Between the two sides of each gallery, and in its center, a bridge for the great f er convenience of crossing . On each o these i br dges sits a man , dozing or reading, or talk i ngto an idle companion . On each tier are two i opposite rows of small ron 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 droop ing 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 . “ A man with keys appears to show us round .

- A good looking fellow, and in his way civil and obliging . ‘Are those black doors the cells ?’ ’ Yes . Are they all full ?’ ’ ’ h i h Well , they re pretty g full , and that s a ’ fact and no two ways about it . ‘ Those at the bottom are unwholesome, ’ surely . o bs 163 The New York T m .

’ d e in . Why, we o only put colored peopl em ’ ’ That s the truth . ‘When do the prisoners take exercise ?’ ’ Well , they do without it pretty much . ’ Do they never walk in the yard ? ’ Considerable seldom . ?’ Sometimes, I suppose ’ do . Well , it s rare they They keep pretty ’ bright without it . ‘ But suppose a man were here for a twelve month ? I know this is only a prison fo r crimi nal h t a ofl en es s w o are charged wi h some gr ve s , are n r while they are awaiting trial , or u der e the afl o rds n mand, but law criminals ma y means of delay . What with motions for new i of not tr als , arrest judgment and what , a pris it oner might be here for twelve months, I take ’ might he not ? ‘ ’ Well , I guess he might . Do you mean to say that i n all that time he would never come out at that little iron door for exercise ?’

‘ - ’ He might walk some, perhaps not much . ’ Will y ou open one of the doors ? ‘All ’ , if you like . one of The fastenings jar and rattle, and the doors turns slowly on its hinges . Let us look in . n A small , bare cell , into which the light e h in ters throug a high chink the wall . There a is a rude means of w shing, a table, and a bed

e . U a man of st ad pon the l tter sits a sixty, read 164 I n ai l with harles i c ens J C D k .

i n . H for o n g e looks up a m ment, gives a im patient, 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 hi s wife and will prob ably be hanged . How long has he been here ?’ ’ A month . When will he be tried ?’ ’ Next term . ‘When is that ?’ ’ Next month .

In England, if a man is under sentence of “ death even , he has air and exercise at certain f ’ periods o the day . ‘Possible ?’ With what stupendous and untranslatable coolness he says this, and how loungingly he n ’ leads o to the woman s side, making, as he f f n goes, a kind o castanet o the key o the stair rail . “ Each cell - door on this side has a square aper in of ture it . Some the women peep anxiously through it at the soun d of footsteps ; others i ff can shrink away n shame . For what o ense h of ol d t at lonely child , ten or twelve years , be ? shut up here ? Oh, that boy He is the son of a prisoner we saw just now ; is a witness i i s against h s father, and detained here for safe ’ keeping until the trial , that s all . “ But it i s a dreadful place for the child to

166 In ail wi th harles ic ens J C D k . majestic proportions and sombre beauty of this mortuary structure so impressed the committee of the Common Counci l who had the' selection of plans for the new jail that they adopted it as h i and t e r model , the general appearance and c onstructi on of the building was made to con form as closely as the necessities of its use per mit ’ t ted to Stev ens s design . As it stands i i s probably the finest specimen of Egyptian arch itecture of its order to be found outside of i nd Egypt tself, a the filth, squalor and grimy ugliness that hem it i n only serve to accentuate t i ffi i i s arch tectura l beauty . Its o cial t tle is the i ne i h i s t C ty Prison, but the o by wh c it bes known was derived from the character of the “ ’ ” in en s s edifice Stev Travels , after which it was planned . From an artistic point of view the selection

‘ of a site for the Tombs was singularly unfo rtu nate . At the date of its erection its location N was upon the upper outskirts of the city . ow the town has grown beyond it miles upon miles . F o r years it stood in the heart of the lowest and now most dangerous criminal district . Even

- its surroundings of tenement houses, work

h r h b i i s ops, di ty streets ar or ng d rty shops of the Th ew Yor Tombs 167 e N k .

hi to the basest order, are anyt ng but inviting i S ghtseer . 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 r shops, and westwa d sees the passing life of an d C en Broadway . Elm street in the rear tre street in front of it abound i n 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 tene o of ments , which line them with t wering piles unclean brick and mortar ; and the pedestrians who and who navigate them, hang about the outside of the prison , as if held there by a spell and only awaiting their turn to pass within its for of walls, are the most part that skulking,

‘ of the ail evil class which knows the interior , j i and quite as well as its outer barr ers , the ways F r which lead to its frowning gate . o many years the passenger traffic of the New York Central Railroad was embarked at a depot o c cu in py g the block above the Tombs . Travel ers were here taken on board cars which were dragged by mules or horses up to Fourth avenue 1 In ail with harles i en 68 J C D ck s. and - i h Twenty s xth street, w ere 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 i an d ld bu lding, converted the o depot into a

i - in and o ut f f fre ght house, o which lines o cars drawn by long tandems of mules clanked day n N a d night the year round . ow the freight de ot and an p is gone, enormous granite structure , which accommodates the various criminal i on its . courts , r ses site Between this building

“ and the Tombs an enclosed bridge for the pas sage of prisoners to and from court spans the street . The Tombs itself was built in the basin of a little lake which was once one of the romantic of and re spots Manhattan Island, a favorite f n sort o the angler a d the pleasure seeker . The lake was kn own as the Collect Pond , a corrup “ ” f h K al kh ek or tion o t e Dutch title c o , Shell s on Point, from a beach of hells which existed

- its margin . The Collect was a fresh water an pond, fed by natural springs, and having out let by small streams into both the North and and ao East rivers . Thus the pond its creeks tually cut Manhattan Island in half an d made

1 In ail with harles i en 70 J C D ck s.

s a i it— Dicken m de his v sit to and , while its outer walls remain substantially the same, its internal construction has been vastly augment i ed and mproved . When he saw it the city watch -house occupied part of the building; and “ he makes a record of a night visit to those ” “ a s nd bl ck ties where men a women , against no i s in whom crime proved, lie all night per fect darkness, surrounded by the noisome vap ors whi ch encircle that flagging lamp yo u i and of light us w th, and breathing this filthy fensive stench The watch -house was on the n d Franklin street side of the jail , a was long i kept up as a police station . Now it s used as a common room for the confinement of vagrants and n drunkards picked up o the streets, pend n i gtheir confinement to the penal institutions . Of another o l d an d hideous institution which n b in o e cannot disassociate with the Tom s, spite of the ab olition of it whi ch has been de

i : creed by law, D ckens wrote “ in h he now The prison yard, whic pauses , has been the scene of terrible performances . - men Into this narrow, grave like place are brought out to die . The wretched creature stands beneath the gibbet on the ground ; the rope is about hi s neck ; and when the sign i s given a T ew Yor Tombs 71 he N k . we1ght at its other end come—s running down and swings him up into the air a corpse . The law requir es that there be present at this dis mal spectacle the judge, the jury, and citizens -fi to the amount of twenty v e. From the com munity it is hidden . To the dissolute and bad B e the thing remains a frightful mystery . tween the criminal and them the prison wall is interposed as a thick and gloomy veil . It is of the curtain to his bed death, his winding sheet and grave . From him it shuts o ut life and all the motives to unrepenting hardihood in that last hour, which its mere sight and pres ffi ence is often all su cient to sustain . There are no bold eyes to make him bold ; no rufli an s ’ r fli n to uphold a u a s name before . All beyond ” the pitiless stone wall is unknown space . At the time of Dicken ’ s visit (1842) London h and was still the scene of public angings , the privacy With which the executions in the Tombs were conducted furnished him with a text forone of his protests against the existing of n state things at home . The Tombs ha gings i a were pr vate, s he stated, but they were not unattended by morbid interest on the part of

. On an the mob the morning of execution , the obscene streets all about would swarm with obscene life . From their festeri ng dens in the i nd th f F ve Points, a from e remoter haunts o 172 I n a il with harles i J C D ckens. vice and crime which had grown up with th e of growth the town , the social banditti came i n a scowling, ribald and revolting legion . They on camped doorsteps before dawn, and all the groggeries drove a roaring trade . They b e guiled the time with gloating rem1n1scen ces of

f r their criminal lives , and watched the jail roof o a signal that the ghastly work within was done . u C riously 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 in h Tombs yard, nesting cotes whic had been put up for them along the inner jail walls and in f the c aves o the buildings themselves . Long immunity from human aggressions had ren ~ and dered them fearless, when the audience for an r gathered execution , unde the gray f h o s shadow o t e jail walls, the pige n were equally certain to assemble, cooing and plum

n . ing themselves i the sunlight above When , of at the fatal moment, the heavy thud the exe ’ cuti oner s axe denoted the severing of the cord which supported the counterweights and sent the victim whirling to his death, the birds , i in startled by the sound, would r se upward

1 In ail with harles ic ens 74 J C D k .

’ ous wretch s end with the mock heroism of cheap bravado and the clap -trap sentiment of literary fustian . The law providing for the of i in execution criminals by electr city, and s one ecret, has performed public service, at a in i h h le st, do ng away with t ese outdoor gat er ings at the Tombs on hanging day .

I n Jai with r e n 178 l Cha l s Dicke s. was largely founded on sentimentality and u p rely personal feeling . He describes his v isit “ In the outskirts stands a great prison n called the Eastern Penitentiary , conducted o a plan peculiar to the State of Pennsylvania . s r an d The ystem he e is rigid, strict hopeless s i in ef olitary confinement . I bel eve it, its oo to d f ts, be c ruel an wrong . “ I was accompanied to this prison by two gentlemen Officially connected with its man a ement in g , and passed the day going from cell to cell and talking with the inmates . Every facility was afforded me that the utmost cour or tesy could suggest . Nothing was concealed of in hidden from my view , and every piece formation that I sought was Openly and frankly of can given . The perfect order the building not o be praised to highly, and Of the excellent motives of all who are immediately concerned i n the administration of the system there can be n o kind of question . “ Between the body of the prison and the outer wall there is a spacious gard en . Enter n ur i g it by a wicket in the massive gate, we p us o sued the path before t its other termination , nd c a passed into a large chamber, from whi h n seven long passages ra diate . O either side o f row of low - s each is l a long, long cell door A with a certain number over every one. bove ’ Phi la el hi s Basti ol p a le. 179

f i a gallery o cells l ke those below, except that they have no narrow yard attached (as those in nd the ground tier have) , a are somewhat f t smaller . The possession o w o Of these is s upposed to compensate fo r the absence Of so much air and exercise as can be had in the dull ’ to of the i n an strip attached each others, hour s and time every day ; , therefore, every prisoner in t and this upper story has w o cells, adjoining communicating with each other . “ 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 w eav ’ ’ o r a er s shuttle shoemaker s l st, but it is stilled b and and y the thick walls heavy dungeon door, only serves to make the general stillness more c of profound . Over the head and fa e every prisoner who comes into this melancholy house in s a black hood is drawn and thi dark shroud , an emblem of the curtain dropped between and to the cell him the living world, he is led from which he never again comes forth until m i m n of i r son e t . his whole term p p has expired H of o r o r e never hears wife children , home friends ; the life or death of any single creature . fi He sees the prison of cers , but, with that ex ce ti on co unte p , he never looks upon a human m or . an nance, hears a human voice He is a t buried alive, o be dug out in the slow rounds of and in a i to years, , the me nt me, dead every I n ail with Charles Dic ens J k . thing but torturing anxieties and horrible des pair . “ and c ri me f His name, , and term o suffering fll r are unknown , even to the o ce who delivers him his daily food . There is a number over

- his cell door, and in a book, of which the gov ern or of the prison has one Oopy and the moral e instructor another, this is the ind x to his his tory . Beyond these pages the prison has no record of hi s existence ; and though he live to in be the same cell ten weary years , he has no of r means knowing, down to the ve y last hour, i n what part of the building it is situated ; what kind of men there are about him ; whether i n the long winter nights there are living people o r near, he is in some lonely corner of the i great gaol, with walls an d passages, and ron doors between him and the nearest sharer in its solitary horrors . “ — Every cell has double doors the outer one f o sturdy oak, the other of grated iron , wherein there is a trap through which his food is hand ed . He has a bible and a slate and pencil , and , under certain restrictions, has sometimes other en books, provided for the purpose, and p and Hi s t ink and paper . razor, pla e and can , and basin hangupon the wall , or shine upon the lit in tle shelf . Fresh water is laid on every cell , and he can draw it at his pleasure . During the day his bedstead turns up against the wall and Hi s leaves more space for him to work in .

182 I n Jail with harles ic e s C D k n . far he was led astray by this was shown by the “ ’ case of the character long known as Di ckens s h ” Dutc man . Of this fellow he wrote : “ In sen another cell there was a German, ’ e e to for t h ed five years imp risonment larceny, two of which had j ust 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 beau ifull f t y . He had laid out the few feet o ground n and behi d him with exquisite neatness, had a in l o c ked m de a little bed the centre , that , by the bye, like a grave . The taste and ingenuity he had displayed i n everything was most ex trao rdinar y , and yet a more dejected, heart it f broken , wretched creature would be di ficult of fo r to imagine . I never saw such a picture lorn affliction and distress of mind . My heart fo r ran hi s bled him, and when the tears down on e of to cheeks, and he took the visitors aside ask, with his trembling hands nervously clutch ing at his coat to detain him, whether there was no hope of his dismal sentence being com ~ to o to muted, the spectacle was really painful o r of witness . I never saw heard any kind misery that impressed me more than the ” wretchedness of this man . Di k n ue of This was the c e sesq it, and it gave its unfortunate subject an international notor

ac . i ety . Now mark the plain, unvarnished f ts ’ h l l i a s 1 P i adep h s Ba tile. 83

“ ’ The name of Dickens s Dutchman was m Charles Langhei er. He was sentenced to the Eastern Penitentiary for the first time on May 15 1840 and it i he i , , was wh le was serving th s 2 5 1 52 . On 8 term that Dickens saw him June , , ’ n n d on F eb . he came back o a year s sentence, a 2 4 1855 i for two , , he was a third t me convicted, i 4 1 1 h n . n 86 e years o this occasion O Apr l , , r n 12 1872 came again for a yea , o March , , he

f r n . 9 1875 was returned o two years, o Sept , , and on 4 1877 t o of April , , he began w terms a 1 1 r c l ed . On . 0 879 e e v a year each Sept , , he ’ nd o three years term, a he was n sooner through with this than he was on ce more con n 2 vi cted a d for in 188 . In sent up a year, the intervals of the sixteen years he spent in this one he had prison, since his first conviction , se in in rved five terms other prisons, three the C of one in l i ounty Jail , Philadelphia, the Ba t m n I n a d one in . ore Penitentiary, New York i i man pla n Engl sh, the was a confirmed pauper

and i . i nd th ef He l ved by mendicancy, a from to e time tim he would commit some larceny, for which Ofl ense all hi s senten ces were im oh him in to to il posed , m—erely order be sent ja to be cared for just as he might have gone on 184 In ail with harles ic ens J C D k . a vacation from hi s regular and mi serable life f upon the chance o charity . ’ I n view of Dickens s positive and unquali fied of in t expression sentiment regard o him, the most curious fact of his life remains to be noted . This is that, fourteen years after ’ o n Dickens s w death, he returned voluntarily to ’ the penitentiary, where he had ended a year s term only a few months before, and begged to m i n . so to i be taken This place, dreadful the ressi onabl e h p novelist, was the only approac to r in home the poo wretch knew . He was a deplorable condition, was nearly eighty years

of an d of . age, had a horror the almshouse The inspectors consented that he should have he a his wish, and was cared for for month, on 14 until his death, which occurred March , 1 4 88 . It is interesting to know that Dickens “ - died at the age Of fifty eight years . This pic ” f ffl nd of ture o forlorn a iction a distress mind, “ this dej ected, heartbroken, wretched crea ” ho ture, w was born eight years before Dickens , s i out urv ved him nearly twice that period, and of lived him, ih the mere number his years , by

- i n on t o . c twenty w It may be remembered, “ necti on with the Fleet Prison episode of Pick

1 In ai l wi th harles ic e 86 J C D k ns.

r an i h i s f om octagonal central building, wh c n T O crowned with a Observatory . 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 in eni o us g construction, in the tower below the r Observatory o lookout . There are some de ta ched on buildings the grounds , used for me chani cal and culinary purposes . The living

‘ a nd apartments Of the w rden a his family,

f . in . o fices, etc , are the front building The outer and inner gates of the prison are never or an Opened at the same time . Even a visitor ofll ci al becomes in a manner a prisoner when he leaves the street . ’ Di ckens s general description of the prison i s u ut are good eno gh, b some Of his statements more picturesque than precise . Prisoners are n r ot shut ofl from intercourse by letter, o even

r r f i . pe sonally, with thei am lies They do see a al v rious persons connected with the prison , though they cannot see other prisoners . Even i the th s, which Dickens thought so cruel , and concealment of thei r faces when they are ’ el tile 1 Philad p hi a s B as . 87

in t i s i f brought o the jail , a precaut on born o benevolence and mercy . The idea is that after a man has served a term at Cherry Hill and and been discharged he may go where he will , if he wishes to live an honest life n o man can

- point him out a s an ex convict . Except in the rl v ate o f o and p record the prison , kn wn only to e accessible only a few responsibl persons , John Jimpson never existed i n the Eastern

State Penitentiary . The keepers , the doctor, N the jail attendants only knew him as O . 99 . The librarian n ever issued books to John Jimp i n 9 . n 1nfirm r so O . 9 , but to N The nurses the a y never attended him when he was sick, but cared

'

No . 99 h n for . No one but t e warden k ew whether the letters sent to him by his wife or N r . family or friends were meant for O . 99 o NO a d 199 . As far as the stigma of his crime n its fl punishment can b e e a ced it is efl aced . He loses his social identity when he enters the i n and on out i pr so , puts it when he comes , l ke a new suit of clothes .

It is a rule of the prison that each convict, when he enters , shall be taught a useful trade, n n if he has ot o e already . He then has a daily as n n or to t k set, a d all that he ca cares produce n ai with harle ic e s 188 I J l C s D k n .

to nd above this task is credited him, a the money is paid to him when he departs . The illiterate convicts are taught to read an d write . Those who display intelligence are en cour

i . aged to cultivate it . Convicts of super or edu cation- such for instance as can produce , , — literary work or paint pictures are permitted of the means to do so . The entire system the prison is reformatory as well as punitive ; the no t o to idea is t merely cage a social beast, but a t me him and train him, so that he may be Of use to the world when he has served his term of isolation . — The idea of separate confinement the Phila — delphia Idea, as it has been called ori ginated an nearly a century ago . In admirable sketch o f the ori gin and history Of the Eastern District r Penitentia y, compiled by Mr . Richard Vaux, of president of the board Inspectors , the his ’ tory of Pennsylvania s system of prison disci pline and management is given in brief but i n terestin f g style . In 1776 the common jail o Philadelphi a was as horrible a den as the worst of t London jails at its worst . An a tempt was

one of made by Richard Wistar, the famous f of it in 1777 amily that name, to reform , but

In ail wi th harles ickens J C D . right to remove the mantels an d firepl aces The from the house . place was purchased in 2 18 1 . The plans of several competing archi te ets were submitted to the board appointed Of by the Legislature, and that John Haviland f was selected . The cornerstone o the Peniten ti ar i i n 1823 for y was la d , and it was Opened f n 2 the reception o convi cts i 18 9 . Up to that on time about had been expended it, but since then the necessary enlargements and improvements have brought its cost up to probably 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 ; an d his confidence i n himself would perhaps b e shaken when he read the record o f his woeb e “ ” gone Dutchman .

THE END.