ST. GEORGE, SOUTHWARK: NORTH-WEST VIEW
(From an Engraving by B. Cole)
Walk with me from the Bridge head southwards, noting the Inns first on the right or the west, and then on the left or east.
We have, first, the Bear on Bridge Head: then, before getting to Ford Lane, the Bull's Head: opposite the market place, the Goat: next the Clement. Opposite St. George's Church we cross over, and are on the east side, going north again: here we have a succession of Inns: the Half Moon: the Blue Maid and the Mermaid: the Nag's Head: the Spur: the Christopher: the Cross Keys: the Tabard: the George: the White Hart: the King's Head: the Black Swan: the Boar's Head. There is a pleasing atmosphere of business mixed with festivity about this street of inns and courtyards: of stables and grooms: of drivers and guards: of coaches and waggons: of merchants and middlemen: of country squires come up on business, with the hope of combining a little pleasure amongst the excitements of the town with a profitable deal or two. There is the smell of roast meats hanging about the courtyards of the inns. There is a continual calling for the drawers, there is a clinking of hanaps and a murmur of voices.
The strepitus, however, of the High Street is not like that of Bankside. There is no tinkling of guitars: no singing before noon or after noon: no laughing: the country folk do not laugh: they do not understand the wit of the poets and the players. High Street has nothing to do with Bankside: the merchants and the squires know nothing about the Show Folk.
There was one exception. Among the Show Folk was a certain Edward Alleyn, who was a man of business as well as a conductor of entertainments. He was on the vestry of St. Saviour's: he was also churchwarden, his name appears in the parish accounts of the period. He was a popular churchwarden: probably he had about him so much of the showman that he was genial, and mannerly, and courteous—these are the elementary virtues of the profession. For we find that when he proposes to retire his fellow members of the vestry refuse to let him go.
It is melancholy to walk down the High Street and to reflect that all these inns, most of them so picturesque, were standing thirty or forty years ago, and that some of them were standing ten years ago. One of them is figured in the 'Pickwick Papers.' The courtyard is too vast: the figures are too small: the galleries are too large: but the effect produced is admirable. Now not only are the old Inns gone, but there is nothing to take their place: a modern public-house is not an Inn. The need of an Inn at Southwark is gone: there are no more caravans of produce brought up to the Borough: the High Street has become the shop and the provider of everything for the populations of the parishes of St. Saviour, St. Olave, St. Thomas, and St. George.
CHAPTER XV
THE DEBTORS' PRISON
There was another kind of Sanctuary in Southwark, a place of Refuge not invited, and of security against one's will—The Debtors' Prison. In fact, there were three Debtors' Prisons—the King's Bench, the Marshalsea, and the Borough Compter. The consideration of these melancholy places—all the more melancholy because they were full of noisy revelry—fills one with amazement to think that a system so ridiculous should be continued so long, and should be abandoned with so much regret, reluctance, and with forebodings so gloomy. There would be no more credit, no more confidence, if the debtor could not be imprisoned. Trade would be destroyed. The Debtors' Prison was a part of trade. It is fifty years and more since the power of imprisoning a debtor for life was taken from the creditor: yet there is as much credit as ever, and as much confidence. To a trading community such as ours it seems, naturally, that the injury inflicted upon a merchant by failing to pay his just claims is so great that imprisonment ought to be awarded to such an offender. The Law gave the creditor the power of revenge full and terrible and lifelong. The Law said to the debtor: 'Whether you are to blame or not, you owe money which you cannot pay: you shall be locked up in a crowded prison: you shall be deprived of your means of getting a livelihood: you shall have no allowance of food: you shall have no fire: you shall have no bed: you shall be forced to herd with a noisome unwashed crowd of wretches: and whereas a criminal may get off with a year or two, you shall be sentenced to life-long imprisonment.'