Part 14 (1/2)

What attorney will take up the case of a man without a farthing? If the debtor wins his case how is he to pay the attorney and costs out of four-pence a day? If he wishes to plead in _forma pauperis_, the law allows the warder to charge six s.h.i.+llings and eight-pence for leave to go to the Court and half a crown for the turnkey to take him there--what prisoner on the poor side can pay these fees? So that when a prisoner is really poor he cannot get his groats at all, for the creditor will not pay them unless he is obliged. Again there are other ways of evading the law. If a debtor surrenders in June there is no Court till November and the creditor need not pay anything till the order of the Court is issued. There are a few doles and charities; but these amount to no more than about 100 a year, say, two pounds a week or six s.h.i.+llings a day.

Now there are 600 prisoners as a rule. How many of these are on the poor side? And how far will six s.h.i.+llings a day go among these starving wretches? There are also the boxes into which a few s.h.i.+llings a day are dropped. But how far will these go among so many? It is within my certain knowledge that many would die of sheer starvation every week were it not for the kindness of those but one step above them.

If, for instance, one would understand what poverty may mean he must visit the Common side of the King's Bench Prison. Those who have visited the courts and narrow lanes of Wapping report terrible stories of rags and filth, but the people, by hook or by crook, get food. In the Prison there is neither hook nor crook: the prisoner unless he knows a trade which may be useful in that place: unless he can repair shoes and clothes: unless he can shave and dress the hair, cannot earn a penny.

Look at these poor wretches, slinking about the courts, hoping to attract the compa.s.sion of some visitor; see them uncombed, unwashed, unshaven; their long hair hanging over their ears; a horrid bristling beard upon their chin; their faces wan with insufficient food, their eyes eagerly glancing here and there to catch a look of pity, a dole or a loan. If you follow them to the misery of the Common side where they are thrust at night you will see creatures more wretched still. These can go abroad even though skewers take the place of b.u.t.tons; these have shoes--which once had toes; these have beds, of a kind; there are others who have no beds, but lie on the floor; who have no blankets and never take off their rags; who go bare-footed and bare-headed. Remember that their life-long imprisonment was imposed upon them because they could not pay a debt of a pound or two. Their pound or two, by reason of the attorney's costs and the warden's fees, has grown and swelled till it has reached the amount of 20 or 40 or anything you will. No one can release them; the only thing to be hoped is that cold and starvation may speedily bring them to the end--the long sleep in the graveyard of St.

George's Church.

I speedily found that I could manage to live pretty well by means of my fiddle. Almost every evening there was some drinking party which engaged my services. I played for them the old tunes to which they sang their songs about wine and women--bawling them at the top of their voices; they paid me as much as I could expect. By good luck there was no other fiddler in the place; a harpist there was; and a flute-player; we sometimes agreed together to give a concert in the coffee-room.

I continued this life for about six months, making enough money every week to pay my way at the Ordinary. Perhaps--I know not--the prison was already beginning to work its way with me and to reduce me, as Tom s.h.i.+rley said, to the condition of a fiddler to Jack in the Green.

I had a visit, after some three months, from Mr. Probus. He came one day into the prison. I saw him standing on the pavement looking round him.

Some of the collegians knew him: they whispered and looked at him with the face that means death if that were possible. One man stepped forward and cursed him. 'Dog!' he said, 'if I had you outside this accursed place, I would make an end of you.'

'Sir,' said Mr. Probus, at whose heels marched a turnkey, 'you do me an injustice for which you will one day be sorry. Am I your detaining creditor?'

The man cursed him again, I know not why, and turned on his heel.

Then I stepped forward. 'Did you come here to gloat over your work, Mr.

Probus?'

'Mr. William? I hope you are well, Sir. The prison air, I find, is fresh from the fields. You look better than I expected. To be sure it is early days. You are only just beginning.'

'You will be sorry to hear that I am very well.'

'I would have speech in a retired place, Mr. William.'

'You want once more to dangle your bribe before me. I understand, sir, very well, what you would say.'

'Then let me say it here. Your cousin, I may say, deplores deeply this new disgrace to the family. He earnestly desires to remove it. I am again empowered to purchase an imaginary reversion. Mr. William, he will now make it 4,000. Will that content you?'

'Nothing will content me. There is some secret reason for this persecution. You want--you--not my cousin--to get access to this great sum of money. Well, Mr. Probus, my opinion is that my cousin will die before me. And since I am firmly persuaded upon that point, and since I believe that you think so too, my answer is the same as before.'

'Then,' he said, 'stay here and rot.' He looked round the prison. 'It is a pleasant place for a young man to spend his days, is it not? All his days--till an attack of gaol fever or small-pox visits the place. Eh?

Eh? Eh? Then you will be sorry.'

'I shall never be sorry, Mr. Probus, to have frustrated any plots and designs of yours. Be a.s.sured of that--and for the rest, do your worst.'

He slowly walked away without a word. But all the devil in his soul flared in his eyes as he turned.

'You do wrong,' said the turnkey who had accompanied him. 'Tis the keenest of his kind. Not another attorney in all London has brought us, not to speak of the Fleet and Newgate, more prisoners than Mr. Probus.

For hunting up detainers and running up the costs he has no equal.'

'He is my detaining creditor,' I said.

The turnkey shrugged his shoulders.