During Two’s time, Deputy Gobble resigned without public statement of cause, and was replaced by Mr. Fisher, a very energetic person, who gave the Department a brilliant imitation of a new broom. I have very kindly feelings towards Fisher, for the reason that he was the one man who recognised the justice of my claim to have One’s promise to me carried out. Two could not be bullied or coaxed even into considering the merits of the matter. When it was brought to his notice, he simply grunted and put it away from him. When a certain titled lady, wife of a Governor-General, complained to him that his Department had not attended to some extensive repairs she had asked to have made at Rideau Hall, he grunted and said to her, “My good woman, I really cannot do what you ask.” So what could I expect. Intimate friends of Her Excellency afterwards called her “my good woman,” which was considered a perfectly ripping joke in those days.
CHAPTER XX
When I left Montreal for Ottawa and the Civil Service, I was forced to leave a few unpaid bills behind me. I owed no serious amount of money, but some of my creditors immediately attacked me like hungry wolves, as soon as they discovered that I was a Government clerk. This did not add to my comfort, nor assist me in a vain effort to make the two short ends of three dollars per day meet. If it had not been that I taught music, did various odd jobs of auditing, accounting and scribbling for newspapers, I would have gone to jail several times; but as it was, I went only once, but I made frequent trips to the Court House, where I stood before a judge to give evidence against myself, and where I was examined as to my private affairs, the number of my family and so on, which was a novel experience for me. I thought I had suffered all things of this nature, but learned that I had not. The Court House, or that particular section of it to which the impecunious are summoned, had its amusing side. I was never there alone, and if I was forced to lay bare my private and financial affairs, I had the satisfaction of hearing similar serio-comic particulars, pertaining to the lives of other Civil servants.
Our civilisation is peculiar, in that it worships morality without being moral, praises honesty and practices dishonesty, honours justice and tolerates injustice, and makes a pretence of believing a great many things that it finds impracticable, inexpedient and inconvenient to follow. Appearance is the only thing that counts, and the most successful hypocrite is the greatest man among us. It is the opinions you express that mark you, not the actions of your life, provided you care for appearances. We are worshippers of form. Good form is everything; the substance is nothing. This is well exemplified in the matter of imprisonment for debt. Civilisation boasts that imprisonment for debt has been abolished long ago, and most of us really believe it, whereas the number of people who suffer imprisonment for this cause is enormous. It is quite true that it is not called imprisonment for debt. The silly farce of sending you to jail for “contempt of court” is gone through, but if you pay your debt, you are liberated at once, and if not, down you go to the common jail, where you are treated very much as if you had stolen chickens or killed a parson.
The tale of my jail experience is very amusing and instructive. It is not generally known that you may go to jail for debt, for the very plain reason that but few men who have had practical experience are willing to admit it. John H. Wesblock is different; he will admit it, and tell you here in cold print that he went to jail for debt in the City of Ottawa, in the year of his time, Forty. It happened that I was worried and excited, and got stubborn and wicked, under the persistent importunities of one particular creditor. He, as ill luck would have it, had an especially exasperating lawyer, who roused such fight as remained in me. The amount involved in the matter was small, and all I was called upon to do to keep out of trouble was to pay into court three dollars a month. I had many calls upon my small means, all paltry sums, but together they made me poor indeed. In a fit of ugliness I balked and decided to let my over-anxious creditor do his worst. The consequence was that as I walked officeward one rainy morning in the Fall, accompanied by my son, I was accosted by a seedy-looking individual, who demanded to be informed if I were John H. Wesblock. I admitted my name. “Well then,” said the party of the first part, “you must come along o’ me. I have a warrant here for your arrest. You are committed to jail for ten days.”
“What for?” I asked.
“Contempt o’ court,” said the party, producing with dirty hands a dirty paper from a dirty pocket. “In the case of Block versus Wesblock.”
My feelings suddenly became a curious mixture of merriment, anger, shame and other emotions. I took the paper from the dirty man and examined it. It was a warrant or commitment or both. I laughed, but I was sick. I wanted to kill the seedy party, in the very worst way, but I just grinned a sickly yellow grin, and told him I was ready to go with him. There was nothing else to do. My little son stood by with wide-open eyes.
“What’s the matter, Dad?” he asked.
“Jail, my son,” I replied. “Jail for your Dad for ten days because he owes money.”