In the Name of the People

by Arthur W. Marchmont

The experiences of that night live as an ineffaceable memory—worse than any nightmare horrors; worse than one’s worst imaginings of any nether world.

The cell was a large one in which perhaps twenty or thirty could have been confined without any undue crowding. There were more than that number already there when I was thrust inside; and many others were brought in afterwards, men and women indiscriminately, until we must have numbered over sixty altogether.

Had all been approximately clean or approximately sober, the air would still have been too foul to breathe and we should have been too crowded to move without shouldering one another. By the exercise of strict discipline and mutual arrangement and forbearance, it would have been possible, by taking turns, for some to have slept while the rest huddled together.

But there was neither cleanliness nor discipline. Most of the men and some of the women were of the scum of the gutter; filthy beyond description and evil-smelling to the point of nausea—the incarnation of all that is offensive and abominable in humanity. And to add to the horror, many of the men were in different stages of drunkenness—hilarious, quarrelsome, brutal or obscene, according as the drink developed their natural or unnatural temperaments. But all were noisy and equally loathsome.

Some dozen of the men and most of the women—of whom there were about fifteen—were of a better class. But two or three of the women were too hysterical from fear to be capable of anything approaching self-command. Their cries and moans of anguish were heartrending; and their occasional piercing screams and vehement outbursts of sobbing, not only added to the general din and racket, but provoked the anger of the drunkards and drew from them a flood of obscenity and abuse.

Wherever a dozen women are brought together in trouble, however, you may confidently look for at least one “ministering angel” among them. There were two in that awful den that night. In appearance they afforded the extremes of contrast. One was a tall buxom woman in the forties with a hard forbidding-looking face, but with a heart as stout as her big body and courage as strong as her bared brawny arms. The other was a pale frail slip of a girl who looked as if a breath of wind would have knocked her down; and it was an act of hers which brought matters to a crisis.

On my entrance two or three fights were in progress, and as I had no wish except to avoid trouble, if possible, I pushed my way to a corner near one of the small barred windows, and stood leaning against the wall, watching the unruly crowd in dismay at the prospect of a night to be passed in such company and in such utterly foul surroundings.

Whenever the door was opened and fresh prisoners were thrust in, their entrance was hailed by raucous shouts of welcome or hoarse oaths and jeers of anger according to the feelings which the newcomers’ looks inspired. Those who were known favourably were hailed by their names, while others were received with yells and curses and immediately seized and buffeted and kicked and mauled, dragged hither and thither like a big bone by a pack of yelping curs, until bruised, battered and half-dead with fear, they found rest and obscurity in a corner; or until some new arrival distracted the attention of their persecutors.

I had been watching one of these affairs when I turned to find the girl I have mentioned at my side. Her fragile form and pale face moved my pity, and I made way so that she could stand just under the window. She thanked me with a smile, and we stood thus for a long time, exchanging an occasional glance.

Later on, one of the noisiest of the hysterical women drifted our way and the girl instantly left her place and began to try and comfort the woman. There must have been magnetism in her touch and eyes, for the effect was remarkable. The other’s cries ceased and her sobbing subsided, and she soon regained a measure of composure.