Under One Flag

You tell him that, to the best of your knowledge and belief, there is not. He looks down. You have seen the doctor and he has seen you; you are dismissed. The officer escorts you back to your ward.

"Now you've seen the doctor," he tells you, as he unlocks the door, "you needn't go back to your cell, if you don't like."

He lets you through, re-locks the door and vanishes. You go down the steps alone and at your leisure. You perceive that the ward is larger than you last night supposed. It is paved with flagstones. On one side there are two tiers of cells-one tier over yours. The upper tier is on a level with the door through which you have just come. An iron gallery runs down the front of it the whole length of the ward. Strolling along the flagstones, you find that an open door, almost opposite your cell, admits you into what, were the surroundings only different, would be quite a spacious and a pleasant garden. There is grass in the centre-in excellent condition-flower-beds all round. Between the grass and the beds is a narrow pathway of flagstones. Three or four men are walking on this pathway. At sight of you, with one accord, they come and offer greeting. It reminds you, in rather gruesome fashion, of your schooldays, of your first arrival at school-there is such a plethora of questions. You vouchsafe just so much information as you choose, eyeing the while your questioners. There are four of them-as doleful-looking a quartette as one would care to see. These men in prison because-they could pay, but wouldn't! – or can, but won't! Upon the face of it the idea is an absurdity. Apart from the fact that the clothes of all four would not, probably, fetch more than half a sovereign, there is about them an air of depression which suggests, not only that they are beaten by fortune, but that they are even more hopeless of the future than of the past. Yet they strive to wear an appearance of jollity. As to their personal histories, they are frankness itself. One of them is a little fellow about forty-five, a cabman. He is in for poor rates, £1, 12s. It seems funny that a man should be taken twenty miles to prison, to be kept there at the public expense, because he is too poor to pay his poor rates. Another is a hawker, a thin, grizzled, unhealthy-looking man about fifty; his attire complete would certainly not fetch eighteenpence. As he puts it, there is something of a mystery about his case-a moneylending job-two-and-twenty shillings.

"The worst of it is, I paid two instalments. The judge he ordered five shillings a month. I pays two months; then I has a slice of bad luck; then I gets here; and there's ten bob thrown clean away."

A third is an old man-he owns to sixty-six-unmistakably an agricultural labourer. He is the healthiest looking and the best dressed of the lot. He has evidently put on his best clothes to come to gaol, the chief feature of the said best clothes being a clean pair of corduroys. The story he tells is a queer one. He was away harvesting. His "old woman" bought a dress from a tallyman. She said nothing of her purchase to him, said nothing even when two months afterwards she died, aged sixty-eight-she must have been a dress-loving old lady! It was only after he had buried her that he learned what she had done. The tallyman presented a claim for eighteen shillings.

"This here dress wasn't no good to me; it were as good as new, so I says to this here chap, 'You can have it back again'; but this here chap he wouldn't have it, so here I be."

The fourth man appears to be the clearest-headed member of the party. He is a bricklayer's labourer, aged thirty-four. He is in for £1, 16s., an ancient baker's bill. His story also has elements of queerness. The bill was incurred nearly four years ago. He fell from a scaffold, was in hospital six months, his home was broken up; the baker, taking pity on his misfortunes, forgave the bill. Later on the baker himself was ruined. A speculator-you are destined to hear a good deal about this speculator; it seems that he sends a regular procession to the county gaol-bought up the baker's book debts. He immediately "went for" the bricklayer's labourer, who had the worst of it, and who, in consequence, is here. When in full work the labourer earns a pound a week. He was out of work for four weeks before he "came in." The day after he did "come in," his wife and six children went upon the parish. A pretty state of things.

I seems that there are four other prisoners for debt. But just now they are shut off in a room at the end of the ward, having an exercise-ground of their own; there is apt to be too much noise if the prisoners are all together.

Presently a warder appears, not only with your writing materials, but also with your bag, its contents left untouched, with all your property, indeed, except your watch, your tobacco, and your money. Almost simultaneously dinner appears, at noon. You are presented with two tins and a tiny loaf. The door leading to the exercise-ground is closed. With your dinner in your hand you troop up the stone steps with your companions. You discover that there is a large room at the end of the upper tier of cells, "First Class Misdemeanants" being painted on the panels of the door. There being, for the moment, no prisoner of that particular class, you have the use of it. It contains tables and stools, all sorts of things-among others, wooden spoons. Armed with a wooden spoon you investigate your tins. It is Wednesday. At the bottom of the large one, which is dirtier than ever, is a slab of suet pudding, brown in hue. With the aid of your spoon and your fingers you eat it; though lukewarm and sticky, it is grateful to your anxious stomach. In the smaller tin are two potatoes, in their jackets, said jackets having, apparently, never been washed. You eat the potatoes, too; but though you are hungrier than ever, the bread you cannot manage. On your mentioning that you could dispose neither of your supper nor of your breakfast, the labourer and the cabman tear off to your cell downstairs, immediately returning in possession of your despised food, which they eat with voracity. They assure you that you will be able to eat anything after you have been here a few days, even the tins. You learn that if you make your wants known to an officer, he will purchase whatever you choose to pay for. Your chief anxiety is to work. You know from experience that you cannot do good work upon an empty stomach. Slender though your resources are, you resolve that you will devote at least a portion of them to the purchase of something which you will be able to eat for breakfast and for supper.

In the afternoon, as you are working in your cell-with the door open-a warder enters the ward. You make known to him your wants. He says he will send you the officer whose duty it is to make purchases for prisoners. When the officer comes, you request him to lay out two shillings for you to the best advantage, and learn, to your dismay, that on the day on which you make a purchase you are supposed to be keeping yourself, and therefore receive none of the prison rations. It is too late to recede, so you tell the officer to make the best of your two shillings. You work till half-past four, then go into the exercise ground, which was opened again at two till five. At five it is closed for the night. Supper is served. You dispose of the greater portion of the gruel, this time you even dispose of some of the bread. Work in your cell till past seven, then stroll with the others up and down the ward. The room at the end of the lower ward has been unlocked. The prisoners are all together. The four you have not seen prove to be very like the four you have-two of them are here at the suit of the speculator in old and bad debts, who is responsible for the presence of the bricklayer's labourer; for poor rates another. A small calculation discloses the fact that a little over ten pounds would set all the eight men free. Shortly before eight you are locked in your cells till the morning. Another night of agony! When at half-past six the warder looks in to ask if you are all right, you answer "No" – you have not closed your eyes since entering the gaol-you have been eaten alive.

"I'll bring you a change of bedding." He does. "You'll find these all right, they've never been issued. You can't keep things clean this side-most of them wear their own clothes, you see, and they come in all alive, oh!"

You exchange your bedding for that which he brings, thankfully, wishing you had spoken before. About seven the same officer reappears. He brings your "things." There is a half-quartern loaf, two ounces of tea, quarter of a pound of butter, half a pound of cheese, tin of corned beef, couple of lemons; you never knew what good food was till you found yourself in possession of those supplies. Directly his back is turned, breaking a corner off the loaf, you rub it against the butter. If they would only allow you the use of a tin knife, what a godsend it would be! A kettle of boiling water is brought at breakfast time. Putting some tea in your pint pot, with a piece of lemon peel, you fill it from the kettle. Although you have to drink your tea from the teapot, you make a sumptuous meal.

At half-past eight you go with the other Church of England prisoners to chapel, a large room, which would probably seat five hundred, allowing to each person the same amount of space which he occupies outside. The debtors occupy the back seats. There is a gallery overhead. There are four raised seats on either side, against the walls; a warder sits in each of them. A pulpit is at the other end, an altar of rather a nondescript kind-which it need be, seeing that the Roman Catholic service is held here too-a couple of screens, more raised seats. A warder is standing before the altar; a door is at either side of him. Through these doors, so soon as the debtors are seated, begins to enter a stream of men, a space of several feet being between each. Those who are awaiting trial are the first to come. The prison costume of blue serge worn by the majority means that their own clothes are unfit to wear. So far as appearance goes, the four or five men in their own apparel would come within the scope of the immortal definition of a gentleman. You have heard about some of them in the debtors' ward. The slight, young fellow in black is a post-office clerk; he has to stand his trial for stealing a letter which contained a cheque. So soon as he reaches his place he falls upon his knees and prays. He wants all the help which prayer can bring him; in all human probability there is penal servitude ahead. The highly respectable-looking individual, with carefully-trimmed black hair and whiskers, who sits on the bench in front of you upon your right, is charged with stabbing his wife; luckily, she is not dead. The big, sandy-haired fellow upon his left, right in front of you, has rank murder to answer for. The story of his crime has been for weeks the talk of the countryside; a dramatic story, with glimpses of livid tragedy. He and his paramour, being shut out one night from the workhouse, took refuge on the hills under the shelter of an overhanging rock. In the night they quarrelled; he slew her with a stone. In the early morning a shepherd met him running across the hills, wet with her blood. Stopping, the man told the shepherd what he had done. Returning together they found the woman under the rock, dead, her head and face battered and broken, the stone beside her.

The trial men are followed by the convicted prisoners, in brick-coloured costumes; some with knickerbockers-those sentenced to penal servitude, who are waiting to be drafted to a convict station; some in trousers-those who are sentenced to not more than two years' imprisonment. The warders stand up as they enter, watching them as cats do mice. Each man is careful that he is a certain distance behind the man in front of him. They sit five on a bench which would comfortably accommodate twenty, in rows, each man exactly behind his fellow. While the procession continues, a woman passes behind one of the screens-a female warder. She commences to play a series of voluntaries on an unseen harmonium-"The Voice that Breathed o'er Eden," "There is a Green Hill" – airs which seem strange accompaniments to such a procession. The chaplain is away for his holidays. The schoolmaster reads the service-an abbreviated edition of Morning Prayer. He does not read badly. The congregation seems to listen with reverent attention, which is not to be wondered at, with the warders eyeing them like hawks. They join heartily in the responses, which is, again, not strange, considering that the only chance they have of hearing their own voice is in chapel. At the end a hymn is sung-"Thine for ever! God of love" – under the circumstance, an odd selection. The congregation sing with the full force of their lungs; perhaps strangely the result is not unpleasing. The female prisoners are in the gallery overhead. A woman's voice soars above the others, clear as a bell. You wonder who it is-officer or prisoner. After the hymn the schoolmaster pronounces the benediction. The service is over.

You work nearly all that day. How your companions manage without work is beyond your comprehension. This is an excellent school for the inculcation and encouragement of the Noble Art of Loafing. In the afternoon another prisoner is introduced. He calls himself a blacksmith, is about sixty, has scarcely a shirt to his back, and is here for poor rates! Later on, two more. One is in prison clothes, the other cowers in a corner of his cell, refusing to have intercourse with anyone. Presently the story goes that he is crying. The fellow in the prison clothes has been brought from a town more than thirty miles away, sentenced to fourteen days imprisonment, for a debt of twelve-and-sixpence.

When, shortly before five, ceasing work, you go into the exercise-ground for a breath of air, you find a warder with a bundle under his arm. In the corner is a brick erection with, fitted into the wall, a thermometer to register over 300° Fahrenheit. It is the oven in which they bake the prisoners' clothes. In the bundle under the warder's arm are the clothes of the twelve-and-sixpenny debtor. A debtor's clothes must be in an indescribable condition before they constrain him to wear the prison uniform. This man's rags-the warder, who is in a communicative mood, declares that you cannot call them clothes-are about as bad as they can be. It is only after the thermometer has continued for some minutes to register a temperature of over 230° that their unmentionable occupants are effectually destroyed.

You sleep better that night; the new bedding-from, at any rate, one point of view-is clean. The next day you come again upon prison rations, eked out, if you choose, with what is left of your own supplies. It is Friday. The Litany is read in the chapel. With what strenuousness do the members of the congregation announce that they are miserable sinners! After chapel you are beginning work when a warder calls your name.

"Put your things together-bring your sheets and towel-your discharge has come. Don't keep me waiting; come along!"

In a maze you ram your things into your bag. You follow the warder. He takes you to a room in which the governor is seated at a table. He addresses you.

"Your discharge has come." To the officer: "Get this man his discharge-note and such property as you may have of his."

Bewildered, you question the governor.

"But who has paid the money?"

"No one. You are discharged at the instance of your creditors. I will read you my instructions."

He does. They are to the effect that your creditors having made an application for your release, the registrar of the county court from which you were committed directs the governor of the gaol to discharge you from his custody forthwith. When he has finished reading, he hands you a letter which has come to you from your wife. Still at a loss to understand exactly what has happened, a few minutes later you find yourself outside the gates.

You have been a prisoner not three whole days. As you look around you-realising that you are once more your own man-you wonder what a man feels like, in his first moments of freedom, after he has been a prisoner three whole months. And years? Think of it!..

On reaching home you find that your wife has received a letter from your creditors. Somewhat late in the day they have been making inquiries into the truth of your statements. They have ascertained that it is a fact that circumstances have been too strong for you, that you have been unable to pay. That being the case, they tell your wife, being unwilling to keep you any longer in gaol, they have given instructions for your immediate release. So here you are. It seems strange, in these days of abolition of imprisonment for debt, that creditors should still have the power of sending their debtors to gaol when they please-and when they please, of letting them out again.

THE THIRTEEN CLUB

I

George Gardiner is a man whose ideas-when he has any-are beneath contempt. I always treated them as they deserved, save on one occasion. That I ever swerved, so far as he was concerned, from the paths of the scornful will, I fear, be the cause to me of lifelong regret.

He had been reading somewhere some nonsense about a number of weak-minded persons who had gathered themselves together in what they called a Thirteen Club. It had been the object of this preposterous association to trample on all sorts of popular superstitions. The members had made it their business to throw down the gage to Fortune, whenever, so to speak, opportunity offered. To challenge Luck, in and out of season, to come on and do its worst. Presumably they derived some sort of satisfaction from this course of conduct. Though, for my part, I cannot see what shape it can have taken.

It was at his own dinner-table he told us about what he had read. Having enlarged upon the subject at quite sufficient length he startled us all by suggesting that we should form a similar society on our own account. I was astounded. My own impression is that we all were. Though I am free to admit that we concealed the fact with a degree of success which, now that I look back, fills me with amazement.

There were eight of us present besides Gardiner. We were his guests. Some of us were sensible men. We must have been. Personally I have never heard so much as a hint breathed against the presumption that I am in possession of a considerable amount of commonsense. My mother has told me, times without number, that she always relies upon my strong commonsense-observe the adjective. If certain of my relatives have not treated me on all matters with that respect to which I consider myself entitled, I feel it is because Providence has seen fit to endow them but scantily with what I have in such abundance. By way of clinching the question I would remark that Miss Adeline Parkes-the young lady whom I trust one day to make Mrs Augustus Short-has more than once declared that the only fault she has to find with me is that I have too much sense. She has two or three times assured me-with the prettiest pout; there is a quality about Adeline's lips which gives charm even to a pout-that my point of view is always the sensible one, and that I do not make sufficient allowance for those whose strength in that direction is not so great as my own.

It would be ridiculous to assume that I was the only level-headed person among the eight individuals whom Gardiner had assembled in his dining-room. Indeed I have reason to believe that Ernest Bloxam is not entirely an idiot. And from the way Bob Waters has treated me I cannot but conclude that he has some notions of what is right and proper. Three of the men present were entire strangers to me. Though it would be wrong to set them down, merely on that account, as fools. Still I cannot forget that it was owing to one of these three, who told me his name was Finlayson, that I found myself involved in that cataclysm of events, my connection with which I shall continue to lament.

Gardiner waited till the cloth had been removed before he made his nefarious suggestion. I cannot but feel that he selected the moment with malicious intention, because at that period of the entertainment we had each of us already disposed of two or three glasses of champagne, and were engaged in the consumption of what I should describe as three or four more. Champagne is, to my mind, a most insidious liquid. It affects me before I really know what is happening. I am credibly informed that no sooner had Gardiner made his proposition than I seconded it with acclamation. I can only say that I am surprised. When I am further assured that I entered into the scheme with zest, and that some of the wildest proposals came from me, I can but turn to the pages of history and reflect, with a sigh, that even the greatest men have had their moments of weakness.

The outlines of the scheme which we drew up between us-I decline to allow for a single instant that I was the leading spirit; Gardiner was the instigator, and I have the clearest possible impression that the man Finlayson was his chief aider and abettor-were as follows. We were to form ourselves into a Thirteen Club. There were to be thirteen members, commencing with Gardiner and his eight guests, to whom four others were to be joined. We bound ourselves to act, under all possible circumstances, in opposition to the teachings of popular superstition. When we were told that a thing was unlucky we were at once to do it, and when lucky we were not to do it on any terms. For instance, we were always to look at a new moon through glass; always to walk under ladders; always to cross people on staircases; always to arrange for the most important events to occur on a Friday. On the other hand we were not to turn over the money in our pockets at the first glimpse of a new moon; not to make the sign of the cross when we met a person who squinted; not to salute a black cat; not to occupy a chair which was reputed lucky when engaged in a quiet hand at cards; not to pick up pins. The subscription was to be thirteen shillings. There was to be a dinner, which was to be a sort of glorification of our principles, at which all the members were to be present. The dinner ticket was to cost thirteen shillings, and thirteen shillings was to be spent in wine.

It was that Thirteen Club dinner which was the cause of all the trouble.

When, the following day, I was gradually recovering from the headache which had kept me in bed till afternoon, I was informed that Gardiner and the man Finlayson wished to see me. It was between three and four o'clock. Simply attired in a dressing-gown and slippers I was wondering whether it would or would not be advisable to venture on another seidlitz powder. I was trying to remember how many I had already taken. I had a notion that the box was full, or nearly full, in the morning, and as there were only two in it now it would seem as if I had taken nearly as many as were good for me. It will be seen that that was not a moment at which I would be likely to extend a warm welcome to the man who had caused me to spend the day in the society of a box of seidlitz powders. My instinct would have been to deny myself entirely, had I been afforded the opportunity, but I was not. Before I knew it they were showing themselves into my room.

Not the least irritating part of it was that they both of them seemed in the best of health and spirits. They glanced at me, then at each other. I am almost persuaded that I detected the man Finlayson in the act of winking.

"Hollo!" began Gardiner. "Got a cold?" I signified that I had something which perhaps might not be inaccurately diagnosed as being of the nature of a cold.

"Ah," remarked Finlayson, "there was a bad draught where you sat last night. What are you taking for it?" He perceived the box which was in front of me. "Seidlitz powders? Best thing possible for a cold-like yours."

I had not previously heard seidlitz powders spoken of as being of use in an affection of the kind. But I allowed the remark to go unanswered. I was not in a mood to chop straws with a person who was to all intents and purposes a stranger to me.

An observation, however, which Gardiner immediately made was productive of something very much like a shock to my system. Tapping the toes of his boots with his cane he said, in quite a casual tone of voice, as it seemed to me, apropos of nothing at all, -

"By the way, Short, it strikes me that we shall have some difficulty in arranging to have the tables shaped like coffins."

"Tables-shaped like coffins?" I stared at him. "What do you mean?"

"It was your idea, and not a bad one. As you said, we may as well be thorough. But, you see, it would involve our having the tables specially made for us, and that would come expensive."

While I was asking myself what Gardiner might be talking about, Finlayson struck in.

"We can manage about the skeletons as menu holders."

"And skulls and cross-bones as table ornaments."

"And a real live black cat for every guest; though it's doubtful if we shall be able to induce each waiter to carry one on his shoulders."

"You'll find that we shall have to confine them in wicker-work cages. If we left them free they'd make a bolt for the door. If we fastened them to the legs of the chairs there might be shindies. The waiters might object to being scratched. Not to speak of the guests. Some folks are so fussy."