"How many prisoners, upon an average, pass through the Receiving Ward in the course of one year?"
"About three thousand three hundred as near as I can guess. All the Debtors receive each so much bread and meat a-week. The prison costs the City close upon nine thousand pounds a year."
"Nine thousand a-year, spent to lock men up, away from their families!" exclaimed Chichester. "That sum would pay the debts of the greater portion of those who are unfortunate enough to be brought here."
"You may well say that," returned the Steward. "Why, half the prisoners who come here are poor working-men, snatched away from their labour, and obliged to know that their wives and children will starve during their absence. That man over there, with the little bundle tied up in a blue cotton handkerchief, is only arrested for 8d. The costs are three and sixpence."
"He is actually a prisoner, then, for four and two-pence."
"Exactly. The man next to him is arrested for 3d., the balance of a chandler's shop debt; his costs are five shillings. But the case of that poor devil who is crying so up in the corner, is the worst. It appears that he had an account at a tally-shop, and paid one shilling a-week towards its liquidation. He was in full work, and earned eighteen shillings a week; and so he regularly gave his wife the money every Saturday night to put away for the tally-man. But the woman is fund of tippling, and she spent the money in gin. Well, the tally-man takes out a summons from the Court of Requests: the wife receives it, and is afraid to tell her husband. Next week comes the Rule: this the woman also hides, hoping, somehow or another, to get together the debt and costs, and settle it unknown to her husband. But no such thing: so this morning, as the poor fellow was going home to dinner, he was arrested for four shillings debt, and six shillings costs."
"This was cruel indeed," observed Chichester, to whom all these details were perfectly new.
"Yes," continued the Steward; "but that is nothing to the things that I have heard men tell up in this room. Loan-Societies, Tally-Shops, and the low pettifogging lawyers, keep this place well-filled."
It was now a quarter to ten; and the poor wretches who could not afford to pay for sheets, were huddled off to bed. Chichester, and the "gentlemen who boarded at the Steward's table," remained up, smoking cigars and drinking ale, until twelve.
Chichester was then introduced into a large room, containing ten or a dozen beds, whose frame-work was made of iron. One miserably thin blanket, a horse-cloth, and a straw mattress and pillow, were all provided for each couch, by the Corporation of the City of London!
Oh! how generous—how philanthropic—how noble; to tear men away from their homes and give them straw, wrapped up in coarse ticking, to sleep upon!
On the following morning Chichester awoke early, and rose with every bone aching from the hardness of his bed. He performed his toilette in a species of scullery attached to the Receiving Ward; and the enjoyment of this luxury was attended with the following disbursements:—Towel. 2d.; Use of Soap, 1d.; Loan of Razor and Lather-box, 1d.
Breakfast, consisting of coffee and dry toast, was then served up.
Those who boarded with the steward sate down and commenced a desperate assault upon the provisions: and those who fancied an egg or a rasher of bacon with their meal, paid twopence extra. The conversation was entirely associated with the prison affairs; it appeared as if those men when once they set foot in the prison, discarded all thoughts of the great world without, from which they have been snatched away. Even when the morning newspaper came in, attention was first directed, by a strange kind of sympathy, to the list of Bankrupts and to the Law Notices, the latter of which afforded them the pleasing and interesting intelligence of who were that day to appear before the Commissioners of the Insolvent Court.
At five minutes past nine, a violent ring at the bell called the Steward in haste to the door. This was the summons of a turnkey who came to remove the new prisoners to the respective departments of the establishment to which they belonged. Thus they were classified into Middlesex Sheriffs' Debtors, London Sheriffs' Debtors, and City Freemen who were also Sheriffs' Debtors; and London Court of Requests' Debtors, and Middlesex Court of Requests' Debtors.
Chichester was ordered to remove to the Poultry Ward, on the London side, the governor declining to comply with the request contained in his letter.
It will be seen from what we have already said, that Whitecross-street prison is essentially different from the Bench, descriptions of which have been given in so many different works, and the leading features of which are so familiar to a large portion of the community, either from hearsay or experience. If a man cannot muster four or five pounds to transfer himself from the custody of the Sheriffs to that of the Judges, by a habeas corpus writ, he must remain in Whitecross-street prison, while the more wealthy debtor enjoys every luxury and privilege in the Bench. And yet, we are constantly assured that there is the same law for the poor as there is for the rich!
The system of imprisonment for debt is in itself impolitic, unwise, and cruel in the extreme:—it ruins the honest man, and destroys the little remnant of good feeling existing in the heart of the callous one. It establishes the absurd doctrine, that if a man cannot pay his debts while he is allowed the exercise of his talents, his labour, and his acquirements, he can when shut up in the narrow compass of a prison, where his talents, his labours, and his acquirements are useless. How eminently narrow-sighted are English legislators! They fear totally to abolish this absurd custom, because they dread that credit will suffer. Why—credit is altogether begotten in confidence, and never arises from the preconceived intention on the part of him who gives it, to avail himself of this law against him who receives it. Larceny and theft are punished by a limited imprisonment, with an allowance of food; but debtors, who commit no crime, may linger and languish—and starve in gaol.
The Poultry Ward was a long, dark, low room, with seven or eight barred windows on each side, sawdust upon the stone floor, and about a dozen or fourteen small tables arranged, like those of a coffee-house, around the walls. The room was full of debtors of all appearances—from the shabby-genteel down to the absolutely ragged. Here a prisoner was occupied in drawing up his schedule for the Insolvent Debtors' Court;—there an emaciated old man was writing a letter, over which he shed bitter and scalding tears;—at another table a young farmer's labourer-looking man was breakfasting off bread and cheese and onions, which he washed down with porter;—close by was a stout seedy-looking person with grey hair, who did not seem to have any breakfast at all;—in this nook a poor pale wretch was reading a newspaper;—in that corner another individual was examining a pile of letters;—several were gathered round the fire in the scullery or kitchen attached to the Ward, preparing their breakfasts;—and others were lounging up and down the room, laughing and talking over the amusements of the preceding night up in the sleeping rooms.
The steward of the Poultry Ward had just finished his breakfast when the turnkey introduced Mr. Chichester.
"Well, Mr. Thaynes," said the Steward, quite delighted to see the new prisoner, "I began to think we should have had none down this morning. Pray take a seat, sir."
This invitation was addressed to Chichester, who sat down accordingly.
The Steward, after exchanging a few observations with the turnkey, produced a book from a drawer in the table, and, addressing himself in a semi-mysterious tone to Mr. Chichester, said—"These are our rules and regulations. Every new member is required to pay an entrance fee of one pound and sixpence; and this goes towards the fund for paying the officers and servants of the ward, providing coals, and administering generally to the comforts of the place."
"I am quite satisfied with the justice of the charge," said Chichester; and he paid it accordingly.