“Yes—and sich a swell bandanna fogle[25] in the gropus.”[26]
“He hadn’t any ready tin though; for he wanted to peel,[27] and put the white-poodle up the spout[28] for a drop of max.”[29]
“And because you wouldn’t let him he doubled you up with a wallop in your dumpling-depot;[30] didn’t he?”
“Yes—but I bruised his canister[31] for him though.”
“This’ll be the third time he’s been up afore the beaks[32] at the Old Bailey.”
“Consequently he’s sartain sure to be lagged.”[33]
“Ah! it must be a clever nob in the fur trade[34] who’ll get him off.”
“Well—talking makes me thirsty,” said Crisp. “I wish I’d someot to sluice my ivories[35] with.”
Markham entertained a faint idea that Mr. Crisp was athirst; he accordingly offered to pay for anything which he and his brother policemen chose to drink.
The officer in plain clothes was commissioned to procure some “heavy-wet”—alias porter; and even the pompous and magisterial inspector condescended to take what he called “a drain,” but which in reality appeared to be something more than a pint.
The harmony was disturbed by the entrance of a constable dragging in a poor ragged, half-starved, and emaciated lad, without shoes and stockings.
“What’s the charge?” demanded the inspector.
“A rogue and vagabond,” answered the constable.
“Oh! very well: put that down, Crisp. How do you know?”
“Because he’s wandering about and hasn’t nowhere to go to, and no friends to refer to; and I saw him begging.”
“Very good; put that down, Crisp. And I suppose he’s without food and hungry?”
“I have not tasted food—” began the poor wretch, who stood shivering at the bar.
“Come, no lies,” ejaculated the inspector.
“No lies!” echoed the constable, giving the poor wretch a tremendous shake.
“Have you put it all down, Crisp?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, let him have a bit of bread, and lock him up. He’ll get three months of it on the stepper to-morrow.”
The poor creature was supplied with a cubic inch of stale bread, and then thrust into a filthy cell.
“What do you think that unfortunate creature will be done to?” enquired Markham.
“Three months on the stepper—the treadmill, to be sure.”
“But what for?”
“Why, for a rogue and vagabond.”
“A vagabond he may be,” said Markham, “because he has no home to go to; but how do you know he is a rogue?”
“Why—he was found begging, wasn’t he?”
“And does that make a man a rogue?”
“Certainly it do—in the eye of the law.”
“Ah! and that eye can see without spectacles too,” added Mr. Crisp with a laugh.
Markham was reflecting profoundly upon the law’s definitions of rogue and vagabond, when another constable entered, leading in an elderly man, belonging to the humbler class, but very cleanly in appearance.
“Well, what’s the charge?” demanded the inspector.
“This fellow will come upon my beat with his apple-cart, and I can’t keep him off. So I’ve sent his cart to the Green Yard, and brought him here.”
“Please, sir,” said the poor fellow, wiping away a tear from his eye, “I endeavour to earn an honest living by selling a little fruit in the streets. I have a wife and seven children to support, and I only stayed out so long to-night because I had had a bad day of it, and the money is so much wanted at home—it is indeed, sir! I do hope you’ll let me go, sir: my poor wife will be ready to break her heart when she finds that I don’t come home; and my eldest boy always sits up for me. Poor little fellow! he will cry so if he don’t kiss Father before he goes to bed.”
There was something profoundly touching in this poor man’s manner and language; and Markham felt inclined to interfere in his behalf. He, however, remembered that he was only allowed to sit in that room by sufferance, and that he was at the mercy of the caprice of ignorant, tyrannical, and hard-hearted men: he accordingly held his tongue.
“Come, Crisp—have you got that down?” said the inspector.
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, let the man be locked up: the magistrate must decide in the morning.”
And the poor fellow, in spite of his remonstrances, was removed to a cell.
“I could not exactly understand what this new prisoner has done,” said Markham.
“Obstructed the way and created a nuisance,” replied the inspector pompously.
“But he is endeavouring to earn his bread honestly, I think; and the road is open to every one.”
“Oh! no such thing. Those little carts frighten the horses in the great folks’ carriages, and can’t be allowed. He must have a month of it—he’s been warned several times, and is incorrigible. I’ll tell the magistrate so.”
“And what will become of his family?”
“Family! why, go to the workhouse, to be sure!” Presently a third constable made his appearance, accompanied by a poor miserable-looking woman and three small children—all wretchedly clad and careworn.
“What’s the charge now?”
“Charge from the workus. This here o’oman was admitted to-night to the Union with them three children; and cos the master ordered her to be separated from her children, she kicked up hell’s delight. So the master turned ’em all out together, called me up, and give ’em in charge.”
“Put that down, Crisp.”
“Yes—and it is true too,” sobbed the poor woman. “I am not ashamed to own that I love my children; and up to this blessed hour they have never been separated from me. It would break their poor little hearts to be torn away from me—that it would, God bless them! I love them all, poor—miserable as I am!”
A flood of tears drowned the voice of this wretched mother.
“Inspector,” said Markham, touched to the quick by this affecting scene, “you will allow me ——”
“Silence, young man. It’s a charge from the workus, and the workus is paramount.”
“So it appears, indeed!” cried Richard bitterly.
“Silence, I say. Don’t interfere, there’s a good lad. Crisp, have you got it all down?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Lock em up, then.”
“At least we shall be together!” exclaimed the unfortunate mother, to whom the three little children clung with all the tenacity of sincere affection.
An hour elapsed, when another policeman entered, bringing in a man dressed as a hostler, and whose face was all covered with blood.
“Well—what now?”
“Fighting in the Blue Dragon: the landlord turned him out, and so I took him up.”
“Put that down, Crisp. What’s your name, my fine fellow?”
“John Snoggles.”
“Put that down, Crisp. He’s a nice bird, isn’t he, Mr. Markham?” added the inspector.
“Markham!” ejaculated the new prisoner.
“Yes—that is my name,” said Richard: “do you know me?”
“Not that I am aweer of sir. Only the name reminded me that I have been this evening in the company of a gentleman as is in the service of a Mr. Markham. I left the Servant’s Arms at twelve precisely, and walked straight down to this here wicinity—I ain’t been more than half an hour coming—when I gets into a row——”
“Well, well,” said Richard, somewhat impatiently, “and what is the name of the person with whom you have passed the evening?”
“With several gentlemen—but the one I named
was Vittingham.”
“Whittingham! he is my butler. Poor fellow! how anxious he will be about me.”
“He’s too drunk to be anxious,” said Snoggles drily: “I was the on’y one as come away sober.”
“I tell you what he could do, if you like,” observed the inspector, who now began to entertain an idea of Markham’s standing in society by the mention of the word butler: “there is no one here to make any charge against the fellow—the constable will withdraw it, and he can take a note home for you.”
“A thousand thanks!” ejaculated Markham. “But you intimated that he was tipsy?”
“He is certainly elevated,” answered Snoggles.
“Well, can you be at my house to-morrow morning by six or seven o’clock?”
“Of course I can, sir.”
“I need not write: you can say that you have seen me, and that I shall be home in the course of the day. Do not mention where I am: I would not have him coming here to seek me.”
Markham slipped half a sovereign into the hands of Snoggles, who took his departure with a faithful promise to execute the commission entrusted to him, and not a little pleased at having so pleasantly escaped a night in the station-house.
It was now past one o’clock; and Markham, feeling rather drowsy, lay down to slumber for a few hours upon a bench, wrapped up in Mr. Crisp’s police-coat.
CHAPTER XV.
THE POLICE-OFFICE.
THE morning was rainy, cold, and lowering.
Markham awoke unrefreshed by his sleep, which had been haunted by the ghost of the young officer who had committed suicide at the Hell. He shivered and felt nervous; as if under the impulse of some impending danger whose nature he could not altogether define. By the good offices of Crisp he obtained the means of washing himself and arranging his toilette previous to an appearance at the police-court; and the same intervention procured him a good breakfast. As he, however, could not eat a morsel, Mr. Crisp very kindly and considerately devoured it all for him.
At about half-past nine o’clock the various constables connected with the charges entered in the police-sheet, arrived at the station-house for the purpose of conducting their prisoners to the Police-court. All those persons who were charged with felony were handcuffed; but of this class the most knowing contrived to bring their hands beneath their garments in some way or other, and thus conceal the symbol of ignominy as they passed through the streets.
Richard was astonished at the number of women who were charged with intoxication and disorderly conduct; and the chivalrous admiration of the whole sex which he felt, and which is so natural to youth, was considerably diminished by the hardened appearance and revolting language of these females.
Markham and the constable who had arrested him proceeded in a cab together to the police-office in Marlborough Street. Upon reaching that establishment, the officer said, “The Magistrate will hear the drunk and assault charges first; so it may be an hour or more before your business will come on. I ought by rights to lock you up; but if you like, we can stay together in the public-house there; and one of my partners will let us know when the case is coming on.”
This arrangement was very acceptable to Richard; and to the nearest public-house did he and the constable accordingly adjourn. For this handsome accommodation all that he had to pay was half-a-guinea to the officer, besides liquidating the score for as much liquor as the said officer and every one of his “partners” who happened to drop in, could consume.
For the present we must request the reader to accompany us to the interior of the police-office.
In a small, low, badly-lighted room, sate an elderly gentleman at a desk. This was the Magistrate. Near him was the clerk, whom the worthy functionary consulted so often that it almost seemed as if this clerk were a peripatetic law-manual or text-book. In front of the desk were the bar and the dock; and the space between them and the door was filled with policemen and the friends of those “who had got into trouble.”
The first charge was called. A man dressed in the garb of a common labourer was accused of being drunk and incapable of taking care of himself. The Magistrate put on a most awfully severe and frowning countenance, and said in a gruff tone, “Well, my man, what do you say to this charge?”
“Please your worship,” observed the prisoner, scratching his head, “I am out of work, and my wife has pawned all our little bits of things for food for the children, and yesterday morning I was forced to go out to look for work without any breakfast. There was but a little bread left, and that I would not touch for all the world. Well, your worship, I was fortunate enough to get the promise of some work for Monday; and meeting a friend, he asked me to have a glass. Now beer upon an empty stomach, your worship——”
The Magistrate, who had been reading a newspaper during this defence, now lifted up his head, and exclaimed, “Well, you don’t deny the charge: you are fined five shillings. Call the next case.”
“But your worship——”
“Call the next case.”
The poor fellow was dragged away from the bar by two huge policemen; and an elegantly dressed person of about twenty-six years of age was introduced to the notice of the magistrate.
“What is your name?” enquired the clerk.
“Name! Oh—John Jenkins,” was the reply, delivered in a flippant and free-and-easy manner.
The Clerk and the Magistrate whispered together.
A constable then stood forward, and stated the charge. The prisoner at the bar had turned out of a flash tavern in the Haymarket at one in the morning, and commenced crowing like a cock, and ringing at front-door bells, and playing all imaginable kinds of antics. When the constable interfered, the gentleman knocked him down; and had not another policeman come up to the spot at the moment, the said gentleman never would have been taken into custody.
The Magistrate cross-questioned the policeman who gave evidence in this case, with great severity; and then, turning with a bland smile to the prisoner, who was surveying the clerk through his eye glass in as independent a manner as if he were lounging over the front of his box at the opera, the worthy functionary said in a tone of gentle entreaty, “Now really we have reason to suspect that John Jenkins is not your name. In fact, my lord, we know you.”
“Well, then,” exclaimed the prisoner, turning his eye-glass from the clerk upon the magistrate, “chalk me up as Lord Plymouth, since you are down upon me in this way.”
“My lord—my lord,” said the Magistrate, with parental urbanity of manner, “these little freaks of yours are really not creditable: upon my honour they are not. I sit here to administer justice to the rich as well as to the poor——”
“Oh! you do, do you?” cried the nobleman. “Now I tell you what it is—if you dare talk any of your nonsense about prisons and houses of correction to me, I’ll not stand it. You know as well as I do that whenever a barrister is to be appointed magistrate, the Home Secretary sends for him and tells him to mind his P’s and Q’s towards the aristocracy. So none of your nonsense; but be quick and let me off with the usual fine.”
“My lord,” ejaculated the Magistrate, glancing with consternation from the prisoner to the clerk, and from the clerk to the prisoner; “did I not say that I sate here to administer equal justice to the rich and the poor? The fine for drunkenness is five shillings, my lord—and in that sum I fine you. As for the assault upon the policeman, I give you leave to speak to him outside.”
The nobleman demanded change for a ten pound note, and threw the five shillings in a contemptuous and insolent manner towards the Clerk, who thanked his lordship as if he had just received an especial favour. The assault was easily settled outside; and the nobleman drove away in an elegant cab, just as the wife of the poor labourer departed in tears from her husband’s cell for the purpose of pledging eve
ry remaining article of clothing that could possibly be dispensed with, to raise the five shillings wherewith to procure his liberation.
Several other cases of intoxication, disorderly conduct, and “obstruction of the police in the exercise of their duty”—which last embraced the veriest trifles as well as the most daring attempts at rescue—were then disposed of. In all instances the constables endeavoured to exaggerate the conduct of the accused, and never once attempted to palliate it; and as the Magistrate seemed to place implicit confidence in every word the police uttered (although one or two cases of gross perjury were proved against them), convictions were much more frequent than acquittals.
The cases of the poor starving emaciated beggar, the apple-cart man, and the affectionate mother, who had all three so powerfully excited Markham’s attention at the station-house, were called on one after another consecutively. Fortunately the inspector was not present at the time to use his influence against the two first, and the master of the workhouse did not appear to press the charge against the last. They were all three accordingly discharged, with a severe admonition—the first against begging and being houseless—the second against earning an honest livelihood by selling fruit in the streets—and the third against clamouring in a workhouse for the mere trifle of being separated from her children.
As these three individuals emerged from the police-office, they were accosted by Mr. Crisp, who informed them that they were “wanted” by a gentleman at a public-house in the neighbourhood. Thither did the trio of unfortunates, accompanied by the poor woman’s children, proceed; and great was their surprise when Mr. Crisp officiously introduced them into a private room which Markham had engaged.
Richard and the police-officer in whose charge he remained, were there; and the moment the poor creatures were shown in, they were accosted by that young man whose ingenuous countenance inspired them with confidence and hope.
The Mysteries of London Volume 1 Page 13