Charles Dickens.]

WHAT CHRISTMAS IS IN THE COMPANY OF JOHN DOE.

15

tions of divers donations, made in former
times by charitable persons, for the benefit in
perpetuity of poor prisoners. To-day, so
much beef and so much strong beer was
allotted to each prisoner.

But what were beef and beer, what was
unlimited tobacco, or even the plum-pudding,
when made from prison plums, boiled in
a prison copper, and eaten in a prison
dining-room? What though surreptitious
gin were carried in, in bladders, beneath the
under garments of the fairer portion of
creation; what though brandy were smuggled
into the wards, disguised as black draughts,
or extract of sarsaparilla? A pretty Christ-
mas market I had brought my pigs to!

Chapel was over (I had come down too late
from the " Reception" to attend it); and the
congregation (a lamentably small one) dis-
persed in the yard and wards. I entered my
own ward, to change (if anything could change)
the dreary scene.

Smoking and cooking appeared to be the
chief employments and recreations of the
prisoners. An insolvent clergyman in rusty
black, was gravely rolling out puff-paste on a
pie-board; and a man in his shirt-sleeves,
covering a veal cutlet with egg and bread-
crum, was an officer of dragoons!

I found no lack of persons willing to enter
into conversation with me. I talked, full
twenty minutes, with a seedy captive, with a
white head, and a coat buttoned and pinned
up to the chin.

Whitecross Street, he told me (or Burden's
Hotel, as in the prison slang he called it), was
the only place where any " life " was to be
seen. The Fleet was pulled down; the
Marshalsea had gone the way of all brick-
aud-mortar; the Queen's Prison, the old
"Bench, " was managed on a strict system
of classification and general discipline; and
Horsemonger Lane was but rarely tenanted by
debtors; but in favoured Whitecross Street,
the good old features of imprisonment for
debt yet nourished. Good dinners were still
occasionally given; " fives " and football were
yet played; and, from time to time, obnoxious
attorneys, or importunate process-servers–––
"rats " as they were called–––were pumped
upon, floured, and bonneted. Yet, even White-
cross Street, he said with a-sigh, was falling
off. The Small Debts Act and those revolu-
tionary County Courts would be too many
for it soon.

That tall, robust, bushy-whiskered man, (he
said) in the magnificently flowered dressing-
gown, the crimson Turkish smoking cap, the
velvet slippers, and the ostentatiously dis-
played gold guard-chain, was a " mace-man:"
an individual who lived on his wits, and
on the want of wit in others. He had had
many names, varying from Plantagenet and
De Courcy, to " Edmonston and Co.," or plain
Smith or Johnson. He was a real gentleman
once upon a time–––a very long time ago. Since
then, he had done a little on the turf, and a great

deal in French hazard, roulette, and rouge
et noir. He had cheated bill-discounters, and
discounted bills himself. He had been a
picture-dealer, and a wine-merchant, and one
of those mysterious individuals called a " com-
mission agent." He had done a little on
the Stock Exchange, and a little billiard-
marking, and a little skittle-sharping, and a
little thimblerigging. He was not particular.
Bills, however, were his passion. He was
under a cloud just now, in consequence of
some bill-dealing transaction, which the Com-
missioner of Insolvency had broadly hinted to
be like a bill-stealing one. However, he had
wonderful elasticity, and it was to be hoped
would soon get over his little difficulties.
Meanwhile, he dined sumptuously, and smoked
cigars of price; occasionally condescending to
toss half-crowns in a hat with any of the other
"nobs" incarcerated.

That cap, and the battered worn-out sickly
frame beneath, (if I would have the goodness
to notice them) were all that were left of a
spruce, rosy-cheeked, glittering young ensign
of infantry. He was brought up by an old
maiden aunt, who spent her savings to buy
him a commission in the army. He went
from Slowchester Grammar School, to Fast-
chester Barracks. He was to live on his pay.
He gambled a year's pay away in an evening.
He made thousand guinea bets, and lost
them. So the old denouement of the old
story came round as usual. The silver dress-
ing-case, got on credit–––pawned for ready
money; the credit-horses sold; more credit-
horses bought; importunate creditors in the
barrack-yard; a letter from the colonel; sale
of his commission; himself sold up; then
Mr. Aminadab, Mr. Blowman, Burdon's Hotel,
Insolvent Court, a year's remand; and, an after
life embittered by the consciousness of wasted
time and talents, and wantonly-neglected op-
portunities.

My informant pointed out many duplicates
of the gentleman in the dressing-gown. Also,
divers Government clerks, who had attempted
to imitate the nobs in a small way, and had
only succeeded to the extent of sharing the
same prison; a mild grey-headed old gentle-
man who always managed to get committed
for contempt of court; and the one inevitable
baronet of a debtor's prison, who is tradition-
ally supposed to have eight thousand a year,
and to stop in prison because he likes it–––
though, to say the truth, this baronet looked,
to me, as if he didn't like it at all.

I was sick of all these, and of everything
else in Whitecross Street, before nine o'clock,
when I was at liberty to retire to my cold
ward. So ended my Christmas-day–––my
first, and, I hope and believe, my last Christ-
mas-day in prison.

Next morning my welcome friend arrived
and set me free. I paid the gate-fees, and I
gave the turnkeys a crown, and I gave the
prisoners imbounded beer. I kept New
Year's day in company with a pretty cousin