For Debt

Fourteen days for “contempt of court”--ominous phrase that between the commas. The county court judge has made an order that a certain debt shall be paid within a certain time. Circumstances have been too strong--compliance has been impossible. You are summoned to show cause why, in default, you should not be committed to prison. The hearing takes place in a distant town. Circumstances are, just then, so strong that you are unable to put in a personal appearance--being without the money with which to pay your fare. Shortly afterwards--you having, in the interim, received no sort of notice as to what has taken place at the distant court--the high bailiff of your district writes to tell you that he has received a warrant for your arrest. He has, he says, written of his own initiative to your creditors’ solicitors, asking if they will allow him to suspend the execution of the warrant for a week--to give you a further opportunity to pay. They have complied with his request. He hopes--in his letter--that, within the week, the money will be paid. You go at once to see him. You tell him you would if you could--you only wish you could! You never have been able to pay since the debt was incurred--circumstances have been too strong. He is a kindly-hearted man--though a shrewd man of the world. He is convinced, of his own experience, that imprisonment for debt does no one any good, neither the man who owes, nor the man who is owed, nor the onlookers who have to contribute to the support of destitute debtors. In your case he will write again, asking still to be allowed to give you time. You return home, hoping that some miracle may happen so that you still may pay. Four days afterwards you admit a young man at your front door. He has come to enforce the warrant. Your creditors have, that morning, instructed the high bailiff to take his prisoner at once--they decline to concede another hour. You and your wife put a few things in a bag--your wife trying her best not to let you think that she will cry her eyes out directly you are gone. She wishes you to take four and threepence in your pocket. Argument, at such a moment, would mean hysterics--and a scene. Her breath comes in great sobs as she kisses you. You give way. You take the money--leaving her with just one shilling. A small payment is due to you upon the morrow; it is on that she is relying; you hope, with all your heart and soul, that it will come. You go with the bailiff--to gaol--because circumstances have been too strong.

The bailiff is a communicative youngster, kindly hearted, like his chief. You are only the third one he has “taken.” He is paid by the job, he will receive five shillings for “taking” you. He considers it money easily earned--he would have received no more had you “dodged” him for days. The county gaol is two-and-twenty miles away, in a lovely country, on the side of a hill, on the edge of the downs. You reach it about half-past four on a glorious July afternoon. You and your custodian are admitted through a wicket in the huge doors. The bailiff shows his warrant. The gatekeeper tells you to go straight on. You go straight on, across an open space, up half a dozen steps, under a lofty arch, which has some architectural pretensions, to a room on the left. The room is a sort of office. In it are two warders, a policeman and a man from whose wrists the policeman is removing a pair of handcuffs. The bailiff delivers his warrant to one of the warders. Certain entries are made in a book. The bailiff obtains a receipt for you--and goes. It is only when he has gone that you realise you are a prisoner. One of the warders favours you with his attention.

“What’s in that bag?”

“Only a change of clothing and my work. Can I not work while I am here?”

“Don’t ask me questions. You oughtn’t to have brought any bag in here--it’s against orders. How much money have you got?” You hand him over four and twopence--on the way you have expended a penny on a bottle of ink. “Can you write? Then put your name here.”

You affix your signature to a statement acknowledging that you have handed the warder the sum of four and twopence. Another warder enters--an older man. He addresses you, --

“What’s your name?” You tell him. “Your age? your religion? your trade?” You allow that you are a poor devil of an author. He goes. The first warder favours you again.

“Take your boots off! Come here!” You step on to a weighing-machine. He registers your weight. “Put your boots on again. Come along with me, the two of you.”

He snatches up your bag, you follow him, accompanied by the gentleman who wore the handcuffs. Unlocking a door, he leads the way down a flight of stone steps to cells which apparently are beneath the level of the ground. “In there!” Your companion goes into one of them. The door is banged upon him. “In here!” You go into another. The door is banged on you. You find yourself alone in a whitewashed cell which contains absolutely nothing but a sort of wooden frame which is raised, perhaps, twelve inches from the floor of red and black lozenge-shaped tiles. After some three or four minutes the door is opened to admit the older warder. He hands you some books--without a word. And, without a word, he goes out again and bangs the door. He has left you in possession of a Bible, a prayer book, hymn book, an ancient and ragged volume of the Penny Post--in its way a curiosity--and a copy of Quentin Durward--Routledge’s three-and-sixpenny edition, almost as good as new. Presently the first warder reappears.

“What property have you got about you?”

You give him all you have, he returning your handkerchief. Having given him everything, he satisfies himself that you have nothing more by feeling in your pockets.

“Can’t I have my work? It is in my bag. Can’t I work while I am here?”

“Ask all questions when you see the governor to-morrow.” He vanishes. Another five minutes, he appears again. “Come along. Bring your books!”

You go into the corridor. Another person is there--in a brick-coloured costume on which is stamped, at irregular intervals, the “broad arrow.” You recognise the gentleman who wore the handcuffs.

“Here you are!” The warder hands you a distinctly dirty round tin, holding, as you afterwards learn, a pint, filled with something which is greyish brown in hue, and a small loaf, of a shape, size and colour the like of which you have never seen before. The warder observes that you are eyeing the contents of the tin distrustfully. “That’s good oatmeal, though you mayn’t like the look of it. But it isn’t the body you’ve got to think about, it’s the soul--that’s everything.”

He says this in a quick, cut-and-thrust fashion which suggests that, behind the official, there is marked individuality of character. With the gentleman in the brick-coloured costume, you follow him up the flight of steps you not very long ago descended. He unlocks the door. “Stand here.” Your companion stands. “You come along with me!” He unlocks another door, you follow him down another flight of stone steps into a lofty ward, on one side of which are cells. He shows you into one. Being in, he bangs the door on you. You are in a cell which is own brother to the one which you have quitted, only that this one makes some pretence to being furnished. It is, perhaps, ten feet by eight feet. The roof is arched, rising, probably, to quite twelve feet. Walls and roofs are of whitewashed brick. The floor is tiled. Opposite to the door, about five feet from the ground, is a small window. Panes of ground glass about two inches square are set in a massive iron frame. The only thing you can see through the window are iron bars. If you get through the window, you will still have to reckon with the bars.

The furniture consists of a wooden frame about two feet by six. An attenuated mattress, which you afterwards learn is stuffed with coir. A pillow of the same ilk. A pair of clean sheets which, by the way, the warder gave you, and which you have brought into the cell. A pair of blankets which look as if they had not been washed for years. A coverlet which, in common with the rest of the bedding, is stamped with the “broad arrow.” There is a heavy wooden stool. A table perhaps eighteen inches square. In one corner is a shelf. On it is a wooden soap-box, containing an ancient scrap of yellow soap, a wooden salt-box containing salt, a small comb and a round tin, very much like a publican’s pint pot. On the floor are a tin washing-basin, a covered tin, which you find you are supposed to use for personal purposes, a home-made hand broom, an odd collection of rags, some whiting, by the aid of which latter articles you are required to keep your cell and your utensils clean and in good order.