NEW YORK: 9 LAFAYETTE PLACE
1883
LONDON
BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I | |
| PAGE |
MY ARREST | |
CHAPTER II | |
THE HOUSE OF DETENTION | |
CHAPTER III | |
“SETTLINGDOWN” | |
CHAPTER IV | |
“PRISONFARE” | |
CHAPTER V | |
GEORGINA | |
BOW STREET | |
CHAPTER VII | |
NEWGATE | |
CHAPTER VIII | |
THE SCAFFOLD | |
CHAPTER IX | |
A PRIVATE EXECUTION | |
CHAPTER X | |
“NEWGATEETIQUETTE” | |
CHAPTER XI | |
THE TITLED CONVICT | |
CHAPTER XII | |
THE CENTRAL CRIMINALCOURT | |
“CORPULENCY” | |
CHAPTER XIV | |
COLDBATH FIELDS | |
CHAPTER XV | |
“OAKUM” LET USSING | |
CHAPTER XVI | |
THE VISITING JUSTICES | |
CHAPTER XVII | |
PRISON TRADES | |
CHAPTER XVIII | |
THE OUTER WORLD | |
CHAPTER XIX | |
THE CONVALESCENT WARD | |
CRIMINAL LUNATICS | |
CHAPTER XXI | |
PRISON CELEBRITIES | |
CHAPTER XXII | |
THE TREAD-WHEEL | |
CHAPTER XXIII | |
GARDENING | |
CHAPTER XXIV | |
THE CHURCH MILITANT INPRISON | |
CHAPTER XXV | |
THE HOSPITAL DEAD-HOUSE | |
CHAPTER XXVI | |
BURGLARS “I HAVEMET” | |
“JUSTICE TEMPERED WITHMERCY” | |
CHAPTER XXVIII | |
RETROSPECT | |
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
| Page |
1.—“BlackMaria” | Frontispiece. |
2.—A Cheerful Group | |
3.—“Should oldAcquaintance be Forgot?” | |
4.—The Effects of a Warm Bathat “Coldbath” | |
5.—A Cell, 8 A.M. | |
6.—A Cell, 8 P.M. | |
7. —A Typical Turnkey | |
(a) Its Normal Expression. | |
(b) Corroborative Evidence. | |
8.—Counting | |
9.—“NegativesKept” | |
10.—Gardening—“Something Approaching” | |
11.—Gardening—“The Line Clear” | |
12.—Whence comest thou,Gehazi? (anexhortation to repentance) | |
CHAPTER I.
“MY ARREST.”
On a dreary afternoon in November, cheerless and foggy as befitted the occasion, and accompanied by that gentle rain which we are told “falleth on the just and on the unjust,” I suddenly, though hardly unexpectedly, found myself in the hands of the law, as represented by a burly policeman in a waterproof cape and a strong Somersetshire accent. The circumstances that led up to this momentous change can be briefly described. I had gone to the office of a solicitor—one White, with whom I had had previous monetary transactions—with reference to a new loan on a bill of exchange; and it must be distinctly understood that any allusions I may make to this individual’s vocations are not to be misinterpreted, for I have the highest respect for his integrity and aptitude for business, legal or otherwise, and cannot but admire (as I’m sure every honest reader will) the horror with which any dishonest act inspired him, which, though it did not deter him from conscientiously completing the transaction as a matter of business, was equally swift in retributive justice, and condemnatory (to use his own expression) of compounding a felony. Mr. White, in short, is a money-lender, who, in addition to the advantages derivable from his legal assistance, is always prepared on undoubted security—such as a bill of sale or a promissory note—to make cash advances at the rate of 240 per cent. I am justified in quoting this as the gentleman’s rate of interest, for I paid him £5 for a loan of £45 for fourteen days, a transaction that his cheque on a Holborn bank will testify. The only marvel that suggests itself to my mind is, that a person who is so scrupulous in refusing to “compound a felony,” as he termed it when he assisted in involving me in the meshes of the law, should retain the ill-gotten and usurious sum of £5 one moment after he was aware (as he has been for a year) that it was the proceeds of a forgery. But perhaps I am wronging the worthy man; he may have subscribed it towards the Hunt he honours with his patronage, or have paid it as his subscription to the London and Discounty Club, to which, I presume, he belongs.
At first sight this rate of interest may appear somewhat high, but a moment’s reflection will dispel the idea. Here was a gentleman, a member of the honourable profession of the law—one who (as he told me) actually hunted with Her Majesty’s hounds, and, for aught I know, may have been honoured with a nod from the Master of the Buckhounds—one, moreover, who occasionally dined with impecunious Irish lords, with whom he had transacted business, and talked of such aristocratic clubs as the “Wanderers’” and the “Beaconsfield” with as much sang-froid and a degree of familiarity such as you and I, gentle reader, might refer to the “Magpie and Stump” at Holloway, and which to me at the time was truly appalling; here, I say, was a gentleman endowed with all these recommendations actually condescending to minister to one’s pecuniary wants; and one would indeed have been unworthy of such advantages had one carped or squabbled over such vulgar trifles as a paltry 240 per cent. There is certainly another point of view from which this “financial” business may be regarded; but if the Master of the Rolls and the “Incorporated Law Society” take no exception to this occupation of one of their members, it is clearly no business of ours to find fault with a gentleman who materially adds to his income by combining the profitable trade of usury with the profitless profession of the law.