ly shewed whence all the scarlet stream had issued; whereas the accuser had not the least mark or appearance of any wound. The justice asked the defendant, what he meant by breaking the king's peace?-To which he answered"Upon my shoul I do love the king very well, and I have not been after breaking any thing of his that I do know; but upon my shoul this man hath brake my head, and my head did brake his stick; that is all, gra." He then of fered to produce several witnesses against this improbable accusation; but the justice presently interrupted him, saying, "Sirrah, your tongue betrays your guilt. You are an Irishman, and that is always sufficient evidence with me." The second criminal was a poor woman, who was taken up by the watch as a street-walker. It was alleged against her, that she was found walking the streets after twelve o'clock; and the watchman declared, he believed her to be a common strumpet. She pleaded in her defence, (as was really the truth,) that she was a servant, and was sent by her mistress, who was a little shopkeeper, and upon the point of delivery, to fetch a midwife; which she offered to prove by several of the neighbours, if she was allowed to send for them. The justice asked her, why she had not done it before? To which she answered, she had no money, and could get no messenger. The justice then called her several scurrilous names, and, declaring she was guilty within the statute of street-walking, ordered her to Bridewell for a month. A genteel young man and woman were then set forward, and a very grave-looking person swore he caught them in a situation which we cannot as particularly describe here as he did before the magistrate; who, having received a wink from his clerk, declared with much warmth, that the fact was incredible and impossible. He presently discharged the accused parties, and was going, without any evidence, to commit the accuser for perjury; but this the clerk dissuaded him from, saying, he doubted whether a justice of peace had any such power. The justice at first differed in opinion, and said, "He had seen a man stand in the pillory about perjury; nay, he had known a man in gaol for it too; and how came he there if he was not committed thither?" "Why, that is true, sir," answered the clerk; "and yet I have been told, by a very great lawyer, that a man cannot be committed for perjury before he is indicted; and the reason is, I believe, because it is not against the peace before the indictment makes it so."-"Why, that The witness was now about to be discharged, when the lady whom he had accused, declared she would swear the peace against him, for that he had called her a whore several times. "Oho! you will swear the peace, madam, will you?" cries the justice; "Give her the peace presently; and pray, Mr Constable, secure the prisoner, now we have him, while a warrant is made to take him up." All which was immediately performed, and the poor witness, for want of sureties, was sent to prison. A young fellow, whose name was Booth, was now charged with beating the watchman in the execution of his office, and breaking his lantern. This was deposed by two witnesses; and the shattered remains of a broken lantern, which had been long preserved for the sake of its testimony, were produced to corroborate the evidence. The justice, perceiving the criminal to be but shabbily dressed, was going to commit him without asking any further questions. At length, however, at the earnest request of the accused, the worthy magistrate submitted to hear his defence. The young man then alleged, as was in reality the case, "That as he was walking home to his lodging, he saw two men in the street cruelly beating a third, upon which he had stopped and endeavoured to assist the person who was so unequally attacked: that the watch came up during the affray; and took them all four into custody: that they were immediately carried to the round-house, where the two original assailants, who appeared to be men of fortune, found means to make up the matter, and were discharged by the constable; a favour which he himself, having no money in his pocket, was unable to obtain. He utterly denied having assaulted any of the watchmen, and solemnly declared, that he was offered his liberty at the price of half a crown." Though the bare word of an offender can never be taken against the oath of his accuser; yet the matter of this defence was so pertinent, and delivered with such an air of truth and sincerity, that, had the magistrate been endued with much sagacity, or had he been very moderately gifted with another quality very necessary to all who are to administer justice, he would have employed some labour in cross-examining the watchmen; at least he would have given the defendant the time he desired to send for the *Opus est interprete. By the laws of England, abusive words are not punishable by the magistrate; some commissioners of the peace, therefore, when one scold hath applied to them for a warrant against another, from a too eager desire of doing justice, have construed a little harmless scolding into a riot, which is in law an outrageous breach of the peace, committed by several persons, by three at the least; nor can a less number be convicted of it. Under this word rioting, or riotting, (for I have seen it spelt both ways,) many thousands of old women have been arrested, and put to expence, sometimes in prison, for a little intemperate use of their tongues. This practice began to decrease in the year 1749. other persons who were present at the affray; neither of which he did. In short, the magistrate had too great an honour for truth to suspect that she ever appeared in sordid apparel; nor did he ever sully his sublime notions of that virtue, by uniting them with the mean ideas of poverty and distress. There remained now only one prisoner, and that was the poor man himself, in whose defence the last mentioned culprit was engaged. His trial took but a very short time. A cause of battery and broken lantern was instituted against him, and proved in the same manner; nor would the justice hear one word in defence: but though his patience was exhausted, his breath was not; for against this last wretch he poured forth a great many vollies of menaces and abuse. The delinquents were then all dispatched to prison, under a guard of watchmen; and the justice and the constable adjourned to a neighbouring ale-house, to take their morning repast. CHAP. III. Containing the inside of a Prison. MR BOOTH (for we shall not trouble you with the rest) was no sooner arrived in the prison, than a number of persons gathered round him, all demanding garnish; to which Mr Booth not making a ready answer, as indeed he did not understand the word, some were going to lay hold of him, when a person of apparent dignity came up, and insisted that no one should affront the gentleman. This person then, who was no less than the master or keeper of the prison, turning towards Mr Booth, acquainted him, that it was the custom of the place for every prisoner, upon his first arrival there, to give something to the former prisoners to make them drink. This, he said, was what they called garnish; and concluded with advising his new customer to draw his purse upon the present occasion. Mr Booth answered, that he would very readily comply with this laudable custom, was it in his power; but that in reality he had not a shilling in his pocket, and what was worse, he had not a shilling in the world." Oho! if that be the case," cries the keeper, "it is another matter, and I have nothing to say." Upon which he immediately departed, and left poor Booth to the mercy of his companions, who, without loss of time, applied themselves to uncasing, as they termed it, and with such dexterity, that his coat was not only stripped off, but out of sight in a minute. Mr Booth was too weak to resist, and too wise to complain of this usage. As soon, therefore, as he was at liberty, and declared free of the place, he summoned his philosophy, of which he had no inconsiderable share, to his assistance, and resolved to make himself as easy as possible under his present circumstances Could his own thoughts indeed have suffered him a moment to forget where he was, the dispositions of the other prisoners might have induced him to believe that he had been in a happier place: for much the greater part of his fellow-sufferers, instead of wailing and repining at their condition, were laughing, singing, and diverting themselves with various kinds of sports and gambols. The first person who accosted him was called Blear-eyed Moll; a woman of no very comely appearance. Her eye (for she had but one) whence she derived her nick-name, was such as that nick-name bespoke: besides which, it had two remarkable qualities; for first, as if Nature had been careful to provide for her own defect, it constantly looked towards her blind-side; and secondly, the ball consisted almost entirely of white, or rather yellow, with a little grey spot in the corner, so small that it was scarce discernible. Nose she had none; for Venus, envious perhaps at her former charms, had carried off the gristly part; and some earthly damsel, perhaps from the same envy, had levelled the bone with the rest of her face: indeed it was far beneath the bones of her cheeks, which rose proportionally higher than is usual. About half a dozen ebony teeth fortified that large and long canal, which nature had cut from ear to ear, at the bottom of which was a chin, preposterously short, nature having turned up the bottom, instead of suffering it to grow to its due length. Her body was well adapted to her face; she measured full as much round the middle as from head to foot; for besides the extreme breadth of her back, her vast breasts had long since forsaken their native home, and had settled themselves a little below the girdle. I wish certain actresses on the stage, when they are to perform characters of no amiable cast, would study to dress themselves with the propriety with which Blear-eyed Moll was now arrayed. For the sake of our squeamish reader, we shall not descend to particulars. Let it suffice to say, nothing more ragged, or more dirty, was ever emptied out of the round-house at St Giles's. We have taken the more pains to describe this person, for two remarkable reasons; the one is, that this unlovely creature was taken in the fact with a very pretty young fellow; the other, which is more productive of moral lesson, is, that however wretched her fortune may appear to the reader, she was one of the merriest persons in the whole prison. Blear-eyed Moll then came up to Mr Booth with a smile, or rather grin on her countenance, and asked him for a dram of gin; and when Booth assured her that he had not a penny of money, she replied," D-n your eyes, I * thought by your look you had been a clever fellow, and upon the snaffling lay at least: but d-n your body and eyes, I find you are some sneaking budget rascal." She then launched forth a volley of dreadful oaths, interlarded with some language not proper to be repeated here, and was going to lay hold on poor Booth, when a tall prisoner, who had been very earnestly eyeing Booth for some time, came up, and taking her by the shoulder, flung her off at some distance, cursing her for a b-h, and bidding her let the gentleman alone. This person was not himself of the most inviting aspect. He was long-visaged, and pale, with a red beard of about a fortnight's growth. He was attired in a brownish black coat, which would have shewed more holes than it did, had not the linen which appeared through it, been entirely of the same colour with the cloth. This gentleman, whose name was Robinson, addressed himself very civilly to Mr Booth, and told him he was sorry to see one of his appearance in that place: "For as to your being without your coat, sir," says he, "I can easily account for that; and indeed dress is the least part which distinguishes a gentleman." At which words he cast a significant look on his own coat, as if he desired they should be applied to himself. He then proceeded in the following manner: "I perceive, sir, you are but just arrived in this dismal place, which is, indeed, rendered more detestable by the wretches who inhabit it, than by any other circumstance; but even these a wise man will soon bring himself to bear with indifference: for what is, is; and what must be, must be. The knowledge of this, which, simple as it appears, is in truth the height of all philosophy, renders a wise man superior to every evil which can befal him. I hope, sir, no very dreadful accident is the cause of your coming hither; but whatever it was, you may be assured it could not be otherwise: for all things happen by an inevitable fatality; and a man can no more resist the impulse of fate, than a wheelbarrow can the force of its driver." Besides the obligation which Mr Robinson had conferred on Mr Booth, in delivering him from the insults of Blear-eyed Moll, there was some thing in the manner of Robinson, which, notwithstanding the meanness of his dress, seemed to distinguish him from the crowd of wretches who swarmed in those regions; and above all, the sentiments which he had just declared, very nearly coincided with those of Mr Booth. This gentleman was what they call a free-thinker; that is to say, a Deist; or, perhaps, an Atheist; for though he did not absolutely deny the ex istence of a God, yet he entirely denied his pro- -labefacta cadebat This way of thinking, or rather of doubting, he had contracted from the same reasons which Claudian assigns, and which had induced Brutus, in his latter days, to doubt the existence of that virtue which he had all his life cultivated. In short, poor Booth imagined, that a larger share of misfortunes had fallen to his lot than he had merited; and this led him, who (though a good classical scholar) was not deeply learned in religious matters, into a disadvantageous opinion of providence. A dangerous way of reasoning, in which our conclusions are not only too hasty, from an imperfect view of things; but we are likewise liable to much error from partiality to ourselves; viewing our virtues and vices as through a perspective, in which we turn the glass always to our own advantage, so as to diminish the one, and as greatly to magnify the other. From the above reasons, it can be no wonder that Mr Booth did not decline the acquaintance of this person, in a place which could not promise to afford him any better. He answered him, therefore, with great courtesy, as indeed he was of a very good and gentle disposition; and after expressing a civil surprise at meeting him there, declared himself to be of the same opinion with regard to the necessity of human action; adding, however, that he did not believe men were under any blind impulse or direction of fate; but that every man acted merely from the force of that passion which was uppermost in his mind, and could do no otherwise. A discourse now ensued between the two gentlemen, on the necessity arising from the impulse of fate, and the necessity arising from the impulse of passion, which, as it will make a pretty pamphlet of itself, we shall reserve for some future opportunity. When this was end • A cant term for robbery on the high-way. ed, they set forward to survey the gaol, and the prisoners, with the several cases of whom Mr Robinson, who had been some time under confinement, undertook to make Mr Booth acquainted. CHAP. IV. Disclosing further Secrets of the Prison-house. THE first persons whom they passed by were three men in fetters, who were enjoying themselves very merrily over a bottle of wine and a pipe of tobacco. These, Mr Robinson informed his friend, were three street-robbers, and were all certain of being hanged the ensuing sessions. "So inconsiderable an object," said he, "is misery to light minds, when it is at any distance." A little farther they beheld a man prostrate on the ground, whose heavy groans, and frantic actions, plainly indicated the highest disorder of mind. This person was, it seems, committed for a small felony; and his wife, who then layin, upon hearing the news, had thrown herself from a window two pair of stairs high, by which means he had, in all probability, lost both her and his child. A very pretty girl then advanced towards them, whose beauty Mr Booth could not help admiring the moment he saw her; declaring at the same time, he thought she had great innocence in her countenance. Robinson said she was committed thither as an idle and disorderly person, and a common street-walker. As she passed by Mr Booth, she damn'd his eyes, and discharged a volley of words, every one of which was too indecent to be repeated. They now beheld a little creature sitting by herself in a corner, and crying bitterly. This girl, Mr Robinson said, was committed, because her father-in-law, who was in the grenadier guards, had sworn that he was afraid of his life, or of some bodily harm, which she would do him, and she could get no sureties for keeping the peace: for which reason Justice Thrasher had committed her to prison. A great noise now arose, occasioned by the prisoners all flocking to see a fellow whipt for petty-larceny, to which he was condemned by the court of quarter-sessions; but this soon ended in the disappointment of the spectators: for the fellow, after being stript, having advanced another sixpence, was discharged untouched. This was immediately followed by another bustle. Blear-eyed Moll, and several of her companions, having got possession of a man who was committed for certain odious unmanlike practices, not fit to be named, were giving him various kinds of discipline, and would probably have put an end to him, had he not been rescued out of their hands by authority. When this bustle was a little allayed, Mr Booth took notice of a young woman in rags sitting on the ground, and supporting the head of an old man in her lap, who appeared to be giving up the ghost. These, Mr Robinson informed him, were father and daughter; that the latter was committed for stealing a loaf, in order to support the former, and the former for receiving it, knowing it to be stolen. A well-drest man then walked surlily by them, whom Mr Robinson reported to have been committed on an indictment found against him for a most horrid perjury; "but," says he, "we expect him to be bailed to-day."-" Good Heaven!" cries Booth, "can such villains find bail, and is no person charitable enough to bail that poor father and daughter?"-"Oh! sir," answered Robinson, "the offence of the daughter, being felony, is held not to be bailable in law; whereas perjury is a misdemeanour only; and therefore, persons who are even indicted for it, are, nevertheless, capable of being bailed. Nay, of all perjuries, that of which this man is indicted is the worst: for it was with an intention of taking away the life of an innocent person by form of law. As to perjuries in civil matters, they are not so very criminal."-"They are not," said Booth: " and yet even these are a most flagitious offence, and worthy the highest punishment."-" Surely they ought to be distinguished," answered Robinson, "from the others: for what is taking away a little property from a man, compared to taking away his life and his reputation, and ruining his family into. the bargain?—I hope there can be no comparison in the crimes, and I think there ought to be none in the punishment. However, at present, the punishment of all perjury is only pillory, and transportation for seven years; and, as it is a traversable and bailable offence, methods are often found to escape any punishment at all.”* Booth expressed great astonishment at this, when his attention was suddenly diverted by the most miserable object that he had yet seen. This was a wretch almost naked, and who bore in his countenance, joined to an appearance of honesty, the marks of poverty, hunger, and disease. He had, moreover, a wooden leg, and two or three scars on his forehead. "The case of this poor man is, indeed, unhappy enough," said Robinson. "He hath served his country, lost his limb, and received several wounds at the siege of Gib By removing the indictment, by certiorari, into the King's-Bench, the trial is so long postponed, and the costs so highly encreased, that the prosecutors are often tired out, and some incapacitated from pursuing. Verbum sapienti. raltar. When he was discharged from the hospital abroad, he came over to get into that of Chelsea, but could not immediately, as none of his officers were then in England. In the meantime, he was one day apprehended, and committed hither, on suspicion of stealing three herrings from a fishmonger. He was tried several months ago for this offence, and acquitted; indeed, his innocence manifestly appeared at the trial; but he was brought back again for his fees, and here he hath lain ever since." Booth expressed great horror at this account, and declared, if he had only so much money in his pocket he would pay his fees for him; but added, that he was not possessed of a single farthing in the world. Robinson hesitated a moment, and then said, with a smile, "I am going to make you, sir, a very odd proposal after your last declaration; but what say you to a game at cards? it will serve to pass a tedious hour, and may divert your thoughts from more unpleasant speculations." I do not imagine Booth would have agreed to this: for though some love of gaming had been formerly amongst his faults; yet he was not so egregiously addicted to that vice, as to be tempted by the shabby plight of Robinson, who had, if I may so express myself, no charms for a gamester. If he had, however, any such inclinations, he had no opportunity to follow them; for, before he could make any answer to Robinson's proposal, a strapping wench came up to Booth, and, taking hold of his arm, asked him to walk aside with her; saying, "What a pox, are you such a fresh cull that you do not know this fellow? why, he is a gambler, and committed for cheating at play. There is not such a pickpocket in the whole quad.” * A scene of altercation now ensued between Robinson and the lady, which ended in a bout at fisticuffs, in which the lady was greatly superior to the philosopher. While the two combatants were engaged, a grave-looking man, rather better dressed than the majority of the company, came up to Mr Booth, and, taking him aside, said, “I am sorry, sir, to see a gentleman, as you appear to be, in such intimacy with that rascal, who makes no scruple of disowning all revealed religion. As for crimes, they are human errors, and signify but little; nay, perhaps, the worse a man is by nature, the more room there is for grace. The spirit is active, and loves best to inhabit those minds where it may meet with the most work. Whatever your crime be, therefore, I would not have you despair; but rather rejoice at it: for perhaps it may be the means of your being called." He ran on for a considerable time with this cant, without waiting for an answer, and ended with declaring himself a methodist. Just as the methodist had ended his discourse, a beautiful young woman was ushered into the gaol. She was genteel and well-dressed, and did not in the least resemble those females whom Mr Booth had hitherto seen. The constable had no sooner delivered her at the gate, than she asked, with a commanding voice, for the keeper; and, when he arrived, she said to him, “Well, sir, whither am I to be conducted? I hope I am not to take up my lodging with these creatures." The keeper answered, with a kind of surly respect, "Madam, we have rooms for those who can afford to pay for them." At these words, she pulled a handsome purse from her pocket, in which many guineas chinked, saying, with an air of indignation, That she was not come thither on account of poverty. The keeper no sooner viewed the purse, than his features became all softened in an instant; and, with all the courtesy of which he was master, he desired the lady to walk with him, assuring her that she should have the best apartment in his house. Mr Booth was now left alone; for the methodist had forsaken him, having, as the phrase of the sect is, searched him to the bottom. In fact, he had thoroughly examined every one of Mr Booth's pockets; from which he had conveyed away a penknife, and an iron snuff-box, these being all the moveables which were to be found. Booth was standing near the gate of the prison, when the young lady above mentioned was introduced into the yard. He viewed her features very attentively, and was persuaded that he knew her. She was, indeed, so remarkably handsome, that it was hardly possible for any who had ever seen her to forget her. He enquired of one of the under-keepers, if the name of the prisoner lately arrived was not Matthews; to which he was answered, that her name was not Matthews but Vincent, and that she was committed for murder. The latter part of this information made Mr Booth suspect his memory more than the former: for it was very possible that she might have changed her name; but he hardly thought she could so far have changed her nature as to be guilty of a crime so very incongruous with her former gentle manners: for Miss Matthews had both the birth and education of a gentlewoman. He concluded, therefore, that he was certainly mistaken, and rested satisfied, without any further enquiry. * A cant word for a prison. |