I was soon within the hospitable doors of Mr. Blowman, officer to the Sheriff of Middlesex. His hospitable doors were double, and, for more hospitality, heavily barred, locked, and chained. These, with the exceptions of barred windows, and a species of grating-roofed yard outside, like a monster bird-cage, were the only visible signs of captivity. Yet there was enough stone in the hearts, and iron in the souls, of Mr. Blowman's inmates, to build a score of lock-up houses. For that you may take my word.
I refused the offer of a private room, and was conducted to the coffee-room, where Mr. Aminadab left me, for a while, to my own reflections; and to wait for the answers to my letters.
They came—and one friend into the bargain. Jones had gone to Hammersmith, and wouldn't be back till next July. Brown had been disappointed in the city. Robinson's money was all locked up. Thompson expected to be locked up himself. Jackson was brief, but explicit: he said he “would rather not.”
My friend brought me a carpet-bag, with what clothes I wanted in it. He advised me, more over, to go to Whitecross-street at once, for a sojourn at Mr. Blowman's domicile would cost me something like a guinea per diem. So, summoning Mr. Aminadab, who had obligingly waited to see if I could raise the money or not, I announced my intention of being conveyed to jail at once. I paid half-a-guinea for the accommodation I had had at Mr. Blowman's; I made a pecuniary acknowledgment of Mr. Aminadab's politeness; and I did not fail to remember the old man in the white halter and the spirituous mantle. Then, when I had also remembered a red-headed little Jew boy, who acted as Cerberus to this Hades, and appeared to be continually washing his hands (though they never seemed one whit the cleaner for the operation), another cab was called, and off I went to Whitecross-street, with a heart considerably heavier than a paving stone.
I had already been three hours in captivity, and it was getting on for eight o'clock. The cab was proceeding along Holborn, and I thought, involuntarily, of Mr. Samuel Hall, black and grimy, making his progress through the same thoroughfares, by the Oxford Road, and so on to Tyburn, bowing to the crowd, and cursing the Ordinary. The foot-pavement on either side was thronged with people at their Christmas marketing, [pg 388] or, at least, on some Christmas business—so it seemed to me. Goose Clubs were being held at the public houses—sweeps for sucking-pigs, plum-puddings, and bottles of gin. Some ladies and gentlemen had begun their Christmas rather too early, and were meandering unsteadily over the flag-stones. Fiddlers were in great request, being sought for in small beershops, and borne off bodily from bars, to assist at Christmas Eve merry-makings. An immense deal of hand-shaking was going on, and I was very much afraid, a good deal more “standing” than was consistent with the strict rules of temperance. Every body kept saying that it was “only once a year,” and made that an apology (so prone are mankind to the use of trivial excuses!) for their sins against Father Mathew. Loud laughter rang through the frosty air. Pleasant jokes, innocent “chaff,” passed; grocers' young men toiled lustily, wiping their hot faces ever and anon; butchers took no rest; prize beef melted away from very richness before my eyes; and in the midst of all the bustle and jollity, the crowding, laughing, drinking, and shouting, I was still on my unvarying way to Whitecross-street.
There was a man resting a child's coffin on a railing, and chattering with a pot-boy, with whom he shared a pot of porter “with the sharp edge taken off.” There are heavy hearts—heavier perchance than yours, in London, this Christmas Eve, my friend Prupper, thought I. To-morrow's dawn will bring sorrow and faint-heartedness to many thousands—to oceans of humanity, of which you are but a single drop.
The cab had conveyed me through Smithfield Market, and now rumbled up Barbican. My companion, the gentleman with the crab-stick (to whose care Mr. Aminadab had consigned me), beguiled the time with pleasant and instructive conversation. He told me that he had “nabbed a many parties.” That he had captured a Doctor of Divinity going to a Christmas, a bridegroom starting for the honeymoon, a colonel of hussars in full fig for her Majesty's drawing-room. That he had the honor once of “nabbing” the eldest son of a peer of the realm, who, however, escaped from him through a second-floor window, and over the tiles. That he was once commissioned to “nab” the celebrated Mr. Wix, of the Theatres Royal. That Mr. Wix, being in the act of playing the Baron Spolaccio, in the famous tragedy of “Love, Ruin, and Revenge,” he, Crabstick, permitted him, in deference to the interests of the drama, to play the part out, stationing an assistant at each wing to prevent escape. That the delusive Wix “bilked” him, by going down a trap. That he, Crabstick, captured him, notwithstanding under the stage, though opposed by the gigantic Wix himself, two stage carpenters, a demon, and the Third Citizen. That Wix rushed on the stage, and explained his position to the audience, whereupon the gallery (Wix being an especial favorite of theirs) expressed a strong desire to have his (Crabstick's) blood; and, failing to obtain that, tore up the benches; in the midst of which operation the recalcitrant Wix was removed. With these and similar anecdotes of the nobility, gentry, and the public in general, he was kind enough to regale me, until the cab stopped. I alighted in a narrow, dirty street; was hurried up a steep flight of steps; a heavy door clanged behind me; and Crabstick, pocketing his small gratuity, wished me a good-night and a merry Christmas. A merry Christmas: ugh!
That night I slept in a dreadful place, called the Reception ward, on an iron bedstead, in a room with a stone floor. I was alone, and horribly miserable. I heard the Waits playing in the distance, and dreamed I was at a Christmas party.
Christmas morning in Whitecross-street Prison! A turnkey conducted me to the “Middlesex side”—a long dreary yard—on either side of which were doors leading into wards, or coffee-rooms, on the ground floor, and by stone-staircases, to sleeping-apartments above. It was all very cold, very dismal, very gloomy. I entered the ward allotted to me, Number Seven, left. It was a long room, with barred windows, cross tables and benches, with an aisle between; a large fire at the further end; “Dum spiro, spero,” painted above the mantle-piece. Twenty or thirty prisoners and their friends were sitting at the tables, smoking pipes, drinking beer, or reading newspapers. But for the unmistakable jail-bird look about the majority of the guests, the unshorn faces, the slipshod feet, the barred windows, and the stone floor, I might have fancied myself in a large tap-room.
There was holly and mistletoe round the gas-pipes; but how woeful and forlorn they looked! There was roast-beef and plum-pudding preparing at the fire-place; but they had neither the odor nor the appearance of free beef and pudding. I was thinking of the cosy room, the snug fire, the well-drawn curtains, the glittering table, the happy faces, when the turnkey introduced me to the steward of the ward (an officer appointed by the prisoners, and a prisoner himself) who “tables you off,” i.e., who allotted me a seat at one of the cross-tables, which was henceforward mine for all purposes of eating, drinking, writing, or smoking; in consideration of a payment on my part of one guinea sterling. This sum made me also free of the ward, and entitled to have my boots cleaned, my bed made, and my meals cooked. Supposing that I had not possessed a guinea (which was likely enough), I should have asked for time, which would have been granted me; but, at the expiration of three days, omission of payment would have constituted me a defaulter; in which case, the best thing I could have done would have been to declare pauperism, and remove to the poor side of the prison. Here, I should have been entitled to my “sixpences,” amounting in the aggregate to the sum of three shillings and sixpence a week toward my maintenance.