It is a prevalent and very erroneous impression to associate voracity and sharp dealings with the Hebrew race, for I’ve found from experience (and I’m admittedly an authority) that for meanness, haggling, and exorbitant terms, with a cloak of hypocrisy to cover this multitude of sins, the Hebrew is considerably out-distanced by his Christian confrère. I might indeed go a step further, and add, that, barring a repellent manner during the preliminaries of a transaction, but which is purely superficial, the dealings of the children of Israel are based on strictly honourable and considerate grounds. No one has ever heard of a Jew robbing you first and then prosecuting you; they are invariably satisfied with one course or the other. (I may here be permitted a slight digression to note that I intend ere long to publish a list of usurers never before attempted, based on my personal experience of them, including members of almost every trade and profession, and which for completeness and accuracy of detail will put to the blush the hitherto feeble attempts of such society journals as Town Talk, Truth, &c.)
At about four o’clock, then, on this dreary November afternoon I found myself with three or four others in Mr. White’s waiting-room. I verily believe one of my companions was a detective, a suspicion that subsequent events tend to confirm. In the frowzy room I found myself waiting for more than an hour, during which time my naturally ’cute disposition, coupled with a consciousness of guilt, convinced me with a “suspeeciun” similar to that of the old lady at the subscription ball at Peebles, “amoonting to a positive ceertainty” that something was up. This apprehension was by no means allayed by my distinctly seeing the shadow of the burly policeman, in cape and helmet, on the frosted window, as he ascended the stairs; and had I been so inclined, there was nothing to have prevented me from at once burning the damning document then in my pocket and walking down-stairs. But I was perfectly callous and indifferent to the result; indeed, I can only attribute my feelings at the time to those of a madman who hailed with delight any change that substituted incarceration and an unburthened mind for liberty and an uneasy conscience. The rest of the incidents in this prologue are easily told, and the next ten minutes (which abounded with sayings and doings, however commendable from a moral point of view, sadly out of place in a usurer’s parlour) found me in a cab, in company with a policeman, with Mr. White, money-lender, solicitor, and commissioner to administer oaths, on the box, his ‘fishy’ partner inside, and driving at the rapid rate habitual to the fleetest four-wheelers of three miles an hour en route to Bow Street. Luck now favoured me, and I was fortunate enough to obtain an interview with Mr. Vaughan, who was on the eve of departure, and who, in a few hurried and well-chosen words, and in a metallic tone of voice that I can only, with all respect, compare to the vibrations of the telephone, which I heard some years ago in its infancy, conveyed to me the momentous intelligence that I was remanded till Tuesday. This was by no means my first appearance at Bow Street Police Court, for though not on so serious a charge as the present, I had on a former occasion made the acquaintance (officially) of the worthy magistrate. The circumstances are briefly these, and though in no way bearing on my present narrative, may be reasonably introduced, as a combination of sweets and bitters, such as one gleans by the advertisements, are to be associated with “chow-chow,” “nabob pickles,” &c., &c. Some four years ago I had the honour of accompanying a well-known but not equally appreciated young baronet, and High Sheriff of an Irish county, notorious for his “Orange” (and orange-bitters with a dash of gin) proclivities, to a low music-hall. The weather was hot, and the evening an exceptionally warm one in June, such an one, indeed, that the most abstemious might have been pardoned for exceeding the bounds of moderation. About midnight we presented ourselves at the portals of that virtuous but defunct institution, and were refused a box on the plea of inebriation. So indignant, however, were both myself and my blue-blooded if not blue-ribboned companion at this monstrous insinuation that we at once proceeded to Bow Street, and laid a formal complaint with the inspector on night duty. The books, and probably that official’s marginal notes, would doubtless place facts and our respective intellectual conditions at the time beyond the shadow of a doubt. For my own part, I confess (with that frankness that has always been my ruin) that if I was not absolutely inebriated, I was decidedly “fresh.” As regards my companion, however, I will not presume to venture an opinion, although High Sheriffs admittedly never get drunk;—is it likely, then, that this one, the pride of his county and an ornament to its Bench, could so far forget himself? Absurd! The sequel, however, has yet to be told; and a few nights afterwards, about 9 P.M., alone, and disguised as a gentleman in evening clothes, I went to the Night House and requested to see the proprietor. A bilious individual hereupon came into the passage, and, supported by a crowd of “chuckers out,” hurled me on to the verandah, where luck and my proximity to the worthy publican enabled me to deal one blow on a face, which eventually turned out to be that of Barnabas Amos; but a member of “the force” happened to be passing, and the gentle Amos, not content with having previously taken the law into his own hands with questionable success, now appealed to the constable, and, in short, gave me in charge for an assault. I will not weary the reader by a description of my detention for twenty minutes in the police station, till I was bailed out by a householder; nor of the proceedings next morning before the magistrate. Suffice it to say that the case was dismissed; that the daily papers honoured me by devoting half a column to a report of the case; that six months after, alone and unaided, I opposed the renewal of the licence for the night-house; that my thirst for revenge was thoroughly satiated; and that I had the gratification of depriving the Amos of a weekly profit of £300, besides about £500 for legal expenses; and that the Middlesex magistrates did their duty and proved themselves worthy of their responsible position by almost unanimously refusing the licence, despite the fervid and well fee’d eloquence of Solicitor-General and voracious barristers, and thus stamped out about as festering a heap of filth and garbage as any that had ever infested this modern Babylon. Mr. Barnabas Amos and I were thenceforth quits, and, barring a chuckle he no doubt had at my subsequent troubles (such as a less magnanimous person than myself might have had at his eventual bankruptcy), I may fairly congratulate myself on having had the best of the little encounter. But another feature of this case suggests itself, and I cannot dismiss this long digression without a few words in conclusion. My quasi friend, the High Sheriff, did not come well out of this matter. We had, as it were, rowed in the same boat on this eventful night, we had both been refused a box on the same grounds, and yet he left me to bear, not only the brunt of the police-court row, but, by a judicious silence, got me the credit of having tried but signally failed to lead him from the paths of rectitude and virtue. I am prepared to make every allowance for a man in his position, lately married to a young and innocent wife, whose ears it was only right should not be polluted with such revelations as a night-house would naturally suggest if associated with her husband’s name; and I was perfectly alive to the necessity of screening him, and willing that my name only (as it did) should appear in the proceedings; nevertheless, there is a right and a wrong way of attaining such an end, and the High Sheriff will, I am convinced, on reflection, admit that he might have attained the same result in a more straightforward manner, and have spared the feelings of his bride and possibly her younger sisters equally as well without leaving a “pal”—to use a vulgar expression—in the lurch without an apology. With this digression I will return (in the spirit) to Bow Street, and close the chapter with a bang such as accompanied the closing of my cell door, and await the arrival of “Black Maria.”
CHAPTER II.
THE HOUSE OF DETENTION.
After a delay of about twenty minutes—when for the first time I found myself an inmate of a police cell—a very civil gaoler (with the relative rank of a Police Sergeant) announced to me, with a “Now, Captain,” the arrival of one of Her Majesty’s carriages. One has frequently heard of the Queen’s carriages meeting, and not meeting, distinguished personages, such as Mr. Gladstone, Sir Garnet Wolseley, the King of the Zulus, and German princelings; but the carriage I refer to must not be confused with this type. They are far from comfortable, the accommodation is limited, and the society questionable; and had it not been for the courteous consideration of the conductor (a Police Sergeant) I should have been considerably puzzled in attempting to squeeze my huge bulk of 19 stone 13 lbs. (as verified a few minutes later in Her Majesty’s scales) into a compartment about 16 inches in breadth. As a fact, however, I remained in the passage, and thus obtained a view of streets and well-known haunts under very novel and degrading conditions. Everyone appeared to stare at this van, and everyone seemed to me to particularly catch my eye; but this, of course, was pure fancy, resulting, I presume, from a guilty conscience—for within the dark tunnel of this centre passage it was impossible that anyone in the streets could see, much less distinguish, anyone inside. I discovered a few weeks later that these uncomfortable police vans were infinitely superior and more roomy than those attached to Her Majesty’s prisons; in fact, I should say they were the only attempt (as far as I could discover) at making a distinction between an untried, and consequently innocent (vaunted English law—twaddle) person, and a convicted prisoner.
My experiences at the “House of Detention” and subsequently at “Newgate” convince me that justice demands a great alteration in the rules regarding untried prisoners, who are allowed and disallowed certain newspapers at the caprice of the chaplain, and actually restricted as to the class of eatables their friends may send them. An instance of this occurred in my case. A kind friend one day brought me a hamper containing, as I was informed, a roast fowl and a tongue; the warder at the entrance-gate, however, told him that these were luxuries in the estimation of the Home-office, and therefore less suited to the palate of an untried (and consequently innocent) man than a chop or steak fried in tallow and procured from the usual eating-house; and as my friend had dragged this white elephant of a parcel about with him for some time, he gave it bodily to the turnkey, who consequently reaped the advantage of the intended kindness to me. Next morning I complained to the Governor, who assured me he should have made no objection to the “luxury” of a fowl; in short, I had been the victim of the zeal of an illiterate and astute official, who, putting two and two together, and weighing the probable effect of his veto on an inexperienced inhabitant of the outer world, had arrived at a very happy arrangement whereby I was deprived and he benefited to the extent of a well-selected hamper. I found the Governor a very good sort. His suit of dittos was a little of the “thunder and lightning” pattern; but if his clothes were loud, his manners were not—in short, he was essentially a gentleman, both in appearance and manners, a beau ideal of the heavy dragoon that existed before the Cardwellite era. I purposely refer to his manners being those of a gentleman because it does not always occur that those situated in a similar position possess the higher recommendation.
The “House of Detention” appeared to me the most awfully depressing place to which my erring footsteps had ever led me. The darkness, the stillness, the novelty of the situation, all tended to this conclusion; and I cannot do better than describe what occurred, and leave the verdict in the hands of the reader. Conceive then a man, who an hour previously was a free citizen, suddenly finding himself stepping out of a police van into a gloomy, white-washed passage, and being inspected and counted with a dozen others by a bumptious turnkey, puffed out with his own importance, addicted, as I have previously mentioned, to cold fowl and tongue, but otherwise oblivious to the veriest rudiments of civilization. Conceive, then, the sensations of a man such as I, finding himself suddenly confronted by such a biped, who, scanning first a paper and then you, begins to drawl out, “What’s your name? Your age? Married or single? Protestant or Romanist?” and a volley of such like rubbish, which only tends to exasperate one, and which might well be dispensed with, seeing that all the desired information is on the paper, and, having been supplied by one’s self not an hour before, is sure to be corroborated, whether correct or not, and considering, too, that this farce is repeated every time you enter and leave the place, and which in a case of frequent remands might occur twice a day. One can hardly narrate a single item regarding the treatment of an untried prisoner that does not call for redress, i.e., if the absurd theory is still persisted in that an untried man is an innocent one. What right has an innocent man to be debarred the privilege of seeing friends (under reasonable restrictions) as often as he pleases, instead of being limited to one visit of fifteen minutes a day? Why should one be allowed to purchase Town Talk and not Truth? Why should the Graphic be permitted and not the Dramatic News? These are anomalies no logic can explain away, and have no right to be left to the caprice of a prison official. The food supply as at present arranged is a cruel system; a prisoner under remand is gratified at hearing that he may procure his own food, and naturally shrinks at the idea of subsisting on prison fare till absolutely compelled. No greater mistake ever was made—the latter is good, clean, and supplied gratis; the former is nasty in the extreme, and scandalously dear. If the doubtful “privilege” is to be continued, it is time the government, in common fairness, controlled the tariff; at present a prisoner is at the mercy of the eating-house keeper, and liable to any charge he may choose to make. I must admit that the caterers for the “House of Detention” were civil and comparatively reasonable, whereas those at Newgate were exactly the opposite. I shall give a detailed account later on of how I was fleeced at the Old Bailey, and I would earnestly warn all prisoners awaiting trial to stick to the prison fare, and carefully to avoid the refreshments supplied from the cat’s meat houses in the neighbourhood. With these slight digressions I shall proceed to a description of the routine at the “House of Detention,” with its rules and regulations and privileges, and the impressions they conveyed to me; and I cannot do better than impress on the reader that this book makes no pretensions to literary merit, but must be regarded rather as a journal of facts, whose principle claim is based on their having been written by a man who is probably as well known as any in England. I ask no praise, I’m equally oblivious to abuse; criticism I’m absolutely indifferent to, being convinced that either my notoriety, my popularity, my identity, or unpopularity, will procure me readers far in excess of any book of greater merit; and it is a consolation to feel that my friends will be glad that I got through some months with a degree of comfort never before paralleled, and my enemies (male and especially female) will be chagrined at discovering that “Imprisonment with Hard Labour” in my case meant kindness from first to last hardly credible, absolutely devoid of any labour at all, and accompanied with luxuries as regards eating and drinking that could not have been surpassed had I been stopping at a first-class hotel and paying thirty shillings a day for board and lodging. Many apparent contradictions may moreover suggest themselves, but taken in the light of a diary, these contradictory views must be regarded as reflecting circumstances as they appeared to me from time to time under various phases. Suffice it to say that I have carefully avoided exaggeration, that everything I narrate can be fully substantiated, and may be unhesitatingly accepted as the experiences of a man endowed with an average amount of brains, who kept his eyes wide open, and who had opportunities given him that no man ever had before, whether higher or lower in the social or criminal scale, of seeing a vast amount of the “dark side of nature.” In my innocence I once fancied I had seen a good deal, and knew a lot; but the following narrative will prove that I was a very babe and suckling, before I became a “Government ward.” Heaven forbid that anyone should purchase his experience at such a price; nevertheless, on the principle that has guided me through life of trying to see everything and do everything, I can only attempt to justify my escapades by endorsing the theory (slightly altered) of the immortal Voltaire, that a man who would go through what I have is “un fois un philosophe, mais deux fois un criminel déterminé.”
CHAPTER III.
“SETTLING DOWN.”
Fresh arrivals appear to come to this awful place at every hour of the day and night. The police courts belch forth their motley loads on an average about twice a day, and when the Sessions are “on,” prisoners arrive as late as nine and ten of a night, and the rumbling of “Black Marias,” the shouting of warders, the turning of keys, the slamming of doors, and a hundred other “regulations” that make night hideous, lead one to imagine oneself in a third-class hostelry alongside a railway station. The absence of clocks, too, that strike (for even they are on the silent system), combined with the primitive hour of retiring to rest, bewilders one in arriving at anything like an approximate idea of time between the bell at night and the bell at 6 A.M. After my first interview with Mr. Vaughan, and with the sound of his melodious voice still ringing in my ears, I found myself about 6 P.M. alighting from the police van inside a dismal courtyard. We had just passed through a massive gate, and had been “backed” on to the entrance of a long and uninviting-looking corridor, but beyond that I had not the faintest idea of where I was; and if I had been told that the House of Detention was situated in the centre aisle of the British Museum, I should not have been in a position to dispute it. As we stepped out, carefully assisted by an official actuated apparently rather by precaution than courtesy, and carefully scanned and counted, I found myself with eight or nine others standing in a row on a huge mat. There was an entire absence of “dressing” in this ragged line, and thus destiny placed me between a ragamuffin with a wooden leg and an urchin of about twelve. My bulk, sandwiched between them, formed a charming picture, and filled up the mat, if not the “background.” My friend, the police sergeant, with a courtesy that officialism failed to rob him of, handed us over to the “Detentionite” barbarian, who, first inspecting us, and then “righting” us, went through the offensive and unnecessary formula of catechizing us—such as “What is your name?” “Who ga”—I mean, “Your age,” &c., &c. This to me was the first and greatest humiliation; the iron entered my very soul, and I realized how awful it all was. Implacable enemies, vindictive tradesmen, revengeful women, chuckle and shout; but time is short, and seventeen days will find me in clover, surrounded by every consideration that is possible, and as happy as circumstances will permit. When we had all been counted and booked, we were escorted downstairs and thrust into very small and separate cells. These cells were literally not more than three feet square, and their only furniture consisted of a block of stone intended for a seat. The turnkey, who showed and carefully locked me in, explained that I should only be there a few minutes, as we were merely awaiting the arrival of the chief warder. After the lapse of a few minutes, we were taken one by one into the office, where a further scrutiny “inside and out” took place. Here, at a desk, sat a warder in front of a ledger; there was, moreover, a weighing-machine and a couple of turnkeys. This constituted the entire furniture! The chief warder, blazing in gold lace and pegtop trousers that filled me with admiration at the time, now appeared, and having come to the conclusion that I was not one of the “unwashed” division, kindly exempted me from the usual bath, the preliminary and very necessary step on these occasions. The chief warder was a very decent and unaffected little man, and comparatively free from the penny-halfpenny bounce that characterizes the chief warder species in general. I here underwent, for the second time, the catechizing process, which being again carefully booked, I was invited in the most dulcet tones to unrobe to the extent of everything except my socks and trousers. With my thoughts wandering to the weighing-machine, “how careful,” thought I, “they must be in accurately weighing one;” and my conjecture was in a measure correct, but my inexperience did not prepare me for the accompanying formula that took place. As I divested myself one by one of my coat, hat, boots, vest, shirt, &c., a pair of nimble hands ran over them with lightning rapidity, which in their turn passed them on to another pair of equally nimble or nimbler hands. In the twinkling of an eye, the contents of my pockets were laid on the table—the modest quill toothpick was not even exempted; fingers passed over every seam and lining of my clothes, and then the same “delicate touch” was applied to my loins and ankles. I was then requested to get on the machine, and the astounding fact recorded that a mountain of humanity in his shirt and socks weighed 19 stone 13 lbs. I have been particular in accurately relating this fact, for later on I treat on the subject of obesity; and the remarks I there make, and the hints I offer, based on very careful observation and experience, will, I am confident, commend themselves to the corpulent, and, IF ACTED ON, will prove very beneficial to those who really desire to reduce themselves. Every article found on me—money, toothpicks, pocket-book, watch, studs, sleeve-links, &c.—were then carefully booked and neatly tied up, and having resumed my clothing, I proceeded upstairs to my future abode.
I cannot allow this opportunity to pass without noting the consideration that prompted the warder to give me a couple of bone studs to replace my own, without which I could not have kept my shirt closed. It was a kindly act, and tends to show that, as a rule and with very few exceptions, prison warders are a well-disposed race if properly treated, and desirous of rendering any civility to men of my class. If a prisoner is fool enough to stand on his dignity, he must not be surprised if his conduct is resented. Another peculiarity I observed here for the first time, but which I found to be the invariable rule at “Newgate” and “Coldbath,” was, that on arrival one was always placed in a most uncomfortable cell in the basement or even below, and gradually promoted upwards. I can only suppose it was intended as a kind of purgatory, with the idea of giving one a bird’s-eye view of what might be expected should one’s behaviour make him ineligible for the greater luxuries associated with “apartments on the drawing-room floor.”
Having dressed, I accompanied a turnkey through innumerable passages abounding in steel gates, which snapped like rat traps as we passed through, till we emerged into what appeared the main passage of the prison. My conductor here handed me over to another warder with a “Here you are; here’s another one;” and I again, and for the third time, had to undergo the “abridged catechism.”