“Oh, Dad, can they do that?” he asked.
“Yes, son, they can,” I said.
He was a gritty kid and said nothing more, but put his hand in mine. I think he had tears in his eyes. The seedy bailiff would allow me no consideration whatever. He would not allow me to call at my office or my home, or do anything but accept his pressing invitation to the coop. We had but a short walk to make to the jail, and my son, who was of a merry and cheerful disposition, was able to laugh at my jokes on the predicament before we arrived. At the jail I bade him good-bye, and told him to run home and break the news to his mother.
In the jail I was carefully and most thoroughly searched, and relieved of all sundries carried in my pockets, except a pocket handkerchief. I learned that if you owe money you cannot smoke. My pipe and tobacco were taken from me. After being as carefully registered and numbered as any crook, I was escorted by two guards to my cell. Cell is the word. It was not a room, but a cell, with heavy iron bars and lock, not different in any respect from the cell I would have been condemned to for a high crime. At my request I was permitted to have paper and lead pencil, and I wrote several necessary notes. To my chief, Mr. Kingdom, I wrote the plain facts. I said to him:
“Dear Mr. Kingdom,—If you have no objection, I will take some of my holidays now. I am in jail, where communications will find me for the next ten days. I would not thus suddenly deprive you of my services willingly, but the Crown cannot possibly have me in two places at the same time, and as it has acceded to the request of one of my creditors that I be incarcerated, my duties as a Civil servant must wait.”
Ten days is a very long time under some circumstances. It is particularly long when spent in jail, without a bath or any of the necessities of decent life. To call what I was offered to eat “meals” would be extravagant. I never got anything fit to eat, except what was sent me from home. I was not allowed to smoke or walk out of doors, or have company, bad, good, or indifferent. I might have walked in the jail yard, in company with the regular boarders, pickpockets, drunks, fighters, burglars and other rips, but I declined the kind permission to take the air at the price. For ten days I had no one to speak to; even the guard would not give me more than a few words. Conversation between guards and prisoners is against the regulations, which applies to all who come to jail, innocent and guilty, criminal and debtor.
The hardness of my stinking straw mattress and pillow, and the look of the mess of morning “skilly,” are impressions of which I shall never be able to rid my mind. I can easily understand that a man, who once suffers a long imprisonment, becomes distorted beyond cure for the rest of his life. For weeks after my liberation the odour of the damned place was in my nostrils.
It was many weeks before I recovered my standing of decency and respectability, even in the eyes of my wife. Mr. Kingdom never referred to my holidays till months had passed.
An equally amusing but more pleasant episode of my days of debt, and one which illustrates the law in another light, was a judgment given by a good and upright judge, who is now no more. This happened in the same Court that condemned me to ten days in jail. A certain voracious creditor pursued me and piled up costs against me, till I came on summons before Judge Good to admit the debt and the bill of costs, which was now more than the debt. Mr. Judge was very kind. He questioned me minutely relative to my affairs, but in a pleasant and courteous manner. Finally he asked me: “How long have you been in the Civil Service?”
“Four years,” I answered.