"You can be of great use, if you care to be," answered Carter. "A barrister must be procured to defend them, witnesses must be found, money procured (and here he cast a side-glance at my plate), and some one ought to interview the comrades in Holloway, and take some food to the poor fellows."
"I am quite willing to do my best in all these matters," I answered enthusiastically.
Carter stayed some little while longer instructing me in the various things I was to do, and then left me, retiring presumably to his double bed again, for I saw no more of him till long after the trial was over. He had handed the work over to me, and doubtless felt that so far as he was personally concerned his responsibilities were at an end.
As soon as the morning papers arrived I scanned them eagerly and from them learned further particulars of the arrest. A widespread conspiracy was suspected, the object of which was to blow up the West End of London, and leaders were devoted to the denunciation of the Anarchists and their infamous teachings. Explosives, it was alleged, had been found in the possession of the arrested men, "evidently destined to carry into effect the deadly work which was only stopped by the hand of God in Queen's Park three weeks ago."
Having disposed of a hasty breakfast, I left the house, and my morning was spent in places which were new and strange to me—Holloway Jail, the Old Jewry, and the Middle Temple. Holloway Prison was my first destination, for before any other steps could be taken it was necessary to ascertain what views the prisoners themselves held as to the course to be adopted in their defence.
I awaited my turn in the prison waiting-room along with a motley crowd of other visitors—burglars' and forgers' wives, pickpockets' mates, and the mother of a notorious murderer among others. Their language was not very choice when addressing the jailers, but sympathetic enough when talking among themselves and inquiring of one another, "What's your man up for?" or, "How did your mate get copped?" I felt painfully conscious of the tameness of my reply: "It's a friend: incitement to murder." How far more respectable murder itself would have sounded in the midst of such superior crime!
One burglar's spouse confided to me that her husband had been "at it for years, but this was the first time he'd been copped:" which latter incident she seemed to consider an unpardonable infringement of the privileges and rights of citizenship. She was a bright buxom little woman and had evidently flourished on his plunder.
In striking contrast to the burglar's wife, I noticed the daughter of a would-be suicide, a tall, beautiful girl, who formed a pathetic contrast to her surroundings. Her unfortunate father—an unsuccessful musician—had succumbed in the struggle for an honest life, and the cares of a large family had driven him to desperation. As I gazed at the poor girl with her tear-swollen eyes and noted her extreme thinness and the shabbiness of her well-worn clothes, and as, from her, my eyes turned to the cheerful burglar's wife, I meditated on the superiority of virtue over dishonesty—especially in the reward accorded to it.
At last, having stated my name, the name of my prisoner, the relationship or lack of relationship between us, and declared my non-connection with the case, and having received a tin number in return for this information, I was ushered through various passages and apartments into a kind of dark cage, separated by a narrow passage from a still darker one, in the depths of which I perceived my Anarchist, O'Flynn, as soon as my eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness. I had several questions to ask him during the few minutes at our disposal, and conversation was anything but easy; for on all sides of me other prisoners and their relatives were talking, weeping, arguing, disputing, and shouting one another down with all their might and lungs.
Two things struck me in Holloway Prison on this my first visit to such a place. Firstly, the outward cleanliness, and I might almost say pleasantness, of the place; and secondly, the illogical nature of the law which treats the unconvicted men, who in its eyes are consequently innocent, like convicted criminals. Nothing could be more uncomfortable and unattractive than the conditions under which the detained men are allowed to see their relatives; no privacy of any sort is allowed them, the time allotted is of the briefest, and only one visitor a day is permitted to pass. The censorship over books allowed is very strict and hopelessly stupid, and altogether everything is made as uncomfortable as possible for those under detention.