“It means that I paid your debt as I knew you couldn’t, and now you owe it me instead. Be punctual, and I’ll do as much again.”
The sheriff’s officer just described was not the only one who befriended the luckless manager. A kindred functionary of the law, having been struck by the cruel conduct of a vindictive tradesman, actually paying the bill himself, and receiving the money back from Mathews in instalments of ten pounds.
Instances grave and gay might be multiplied of the actor’s unfortunate position and the financial entanglements that, like heavy fetters, constrained him at every step. He said that the results of the Covent Garden speculation were for the first season sowing, for the second hoeing, and for the third owing. On his debts being called in, to his dismay he found that including rent the responsibilities amounted to the sum of £30,000. Mathews when he learned the fact was aghast, and his only remedy was the Insolvent Debtors’ Court. Things were made easy for him, and he passed a week in an elegantly fitted chamber above the Porters’ Lodge of the Queen’s Bench Prison. He was not unacquainted with that prison, having had residence there soon after his first notorious American trip, and during that imprisonment he took advantage of the old rules pertaining to the liberties of the Bench, and played an engagement at the Surrey Theatre. The theatre being a few yards beyond the boundaries of the Queen’s Bench liberties, Davidge, the Surrey lessee, and Cross, lessee of the Surrey Zoological Gardens, gave extra bail to enable Charles Mathews to have the day rule extended through the evening. A tipstaff was stationed at his dressing-room door and at each wing of the stage, to watch the actor, who, though out of the Bench, was in custody. When absolutely free from his Covent Garden liabilities he with a sense of honour that did him credit gave securities for what he considered purely personal debts, making himself still liable to the amount of about £4000, anticipating that the creditors would treat him with consideration and thoughtfulness. He was mistaken, and for years he still had the millstone round his neck. During his lesseeship of the Lyceum he was in the same straits as he was in the Old Covent Garden days. Accumulated interest, law expenses for raising money, grew year after year and Mathews was still in his miserable plight of impecuniosity. At length in July 1856, while about to play at the Preston Theatre, he was arrested and imprisoned in Lancaster Gaol. He chafed under the incarceration, and he has left a touching account of the misery he felt on being separated from his wife, and of the melancholy influences of his prison-house. His imprisonment created much gossip, and ere he left “durance vile” a somewhat singular recognition of his circumstances took place. His fellow-prisoners in Lancaster Gaol communicated with him as follows:
Letter addressed to Charles J. Mathews, in Lancaster Castle, July 1856:—
“Illustrious Sir,
“Permit us to address you as a brother-debtor surrounded by oppressive circumstances akin to our own, which are rendered the more striking to one who like yourself has acquired a world-wide reputation as an artist and elocutionist; and whose uniform kindness and manly conduct has excited the admiration of those who now respectfully, through this medium, tender you what they consider to be a just meed of approbation.
“With the newspaper gossip relative to your alleged state of affairs, which has been extensively circulated we have nothing to do and we know not whether you are fiercely opposed or otherwise; we seek not to elicit any facts connected with your position, but we beg most earnestly and respectfully to compassionate you as one of the most ingenious amongst our common manhood; and having for the most part felt the pangs attendant upon the day and hour of tribulation, allow us to express the strength of our sympathetic feeling by stating that we heartily wish you a signal, complete, and honourable release from that load of embarrassment which so unhappily depresses us all, but which, by reason of your refined sensibility must necessarily press with great force upon your mental organization; and this feeling compels us to say, ‘Go on and conquer.’
“Signed on behalf of the members of the Long Room,
“John Harridge,
“Chairman.”
Mathews thought that there was an odd flavour of Mr. Micawber about the foregoing epistle. Subsequently he did what he should have done years before, sought freedom from his liabilities under legal protection. Many droll scenes took place when the comedian was under Bankruptcy examination. On one occasion Mr. Commissioner Law asked him why he had kept a brougham, instead of taking a cab to and fro between his residence and the theatre; and the lawyer was told thereupon by the debtor, that the brougham was hired from the purest motives of economy.