Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (2202 page)

My Civility-money being paid, I am charged two shillings for my first night
ý
s lodging. (The reader will be good enough to remember, whenever money is spoken of, that the value of a shilling, a century and a quarter ago, was a very different thing from the value of a shilling at the present day.) For every night
’
s lodging afterwards I am charged one shilling, and for my firing one shilling also per diem. This is about six times the real value of the latter article of convenience; and yet, forgetful of the large profit he gets out of me, my excellent friend, the bailiff (B. L., after calling him a Crocodile for five pages, varies the epithet at the sixth, and speaks of him as a Cannibal), comes in at eight o
’
clock every night and puts out my fire and extinguishes my candle, whether I am ready to go to bed at that early hour or not. Finally, when I retire for the night, it is more than probable that I shall find I have to share my bed with one
sometimes, even, with two
of my fellow-debtors; the cannibal
’
s only object being to prey, to the utmost possible extent, upon his prisoners
’
purses, and to give them as little comfort and convenience in return as he possibly can.

At breakfast, the next morning, I pay four times as much as I ought for my tea, coffee, or chocolate. I am charged a shilling for bread, cheese, or butter. The regular contract price for my dinner is two shillings, or three shillings, or as much more as will include the expense of the cannibal-bailiff
’
s meal along with mine. If he has a wife and daughters I pay more, because the tea and sugar for the ladies becomes, in that case, a necessary part of my bill. If I complain, dreadful threats of calling a coach and taking me to Newgate forthwith, silence me in a moment, I must object to nothing
ý
not even to the quality of the liquors of which I consume such large quantities by deputy. Though the brandy is “a composition of diverse spirituous liquids,” though “the Geneva is fourpence per quartern, and short in measure,” though “the wine is horrid base,” I must still pay hugely for all, and be particularly careful, on every occasion, to hold my tongue. If I want to vent my repressed feelings in a letter to a friend, I must first beg and pray for liberty to compose that document, and must then pay double price to the messenger who takes it to its address. If I only give him a penny to put it into the, post-office, he indignantly puts it into the fire instead. Even when I fee him liberally he, or some other among the swine, crocodiles, and cannibals of the establishment, opens my letter and reads it, and declines to deliver it if there is anything that he happens to dislike, or to consider as personally offensive in the contents. He takes a precisely similar liberty with any letters which my friends send to me, unless they are wise enough to have them delivered straight into my own hands. Last and sorest aggravation of all, I am charged half-a-crown a day for the luxury of having a bailiff
ý
s follower to lock me up in my room, with a shilling a day extra for the victuals which the monster eats.

Against this exposure of the cruelty and extortion of a sponging-house, the Debtor
ý
s Best Friend sets the companion-picture of the hospitality, the economy, and the happiness of Newgate; earnestly and affectionately entreating all his embarrassed fellow-creatures to flock to that delightful prison for the future, whenever they are arrested by their unfeeling creditors. How different are the events, how varied is the scene on the new stage! I am arrested, we will say, again
ý
or, no, let the reader take his turn now, for the writer has surely suffered enough in the sponging-house to justify him in resuming, at this point of the narrative, his natural character of a solvent man. With your kind permission, therefore, you, reader, are arrested, this time. You have read the inestimable Treatise of B. L. Thanks to the warning of that philanthropic man, you are too sharp to be deceived as I have been; and when the bailiff taps you on the shoulder, and asks you where you will go, you answer with a promptness that confounds the fellow: “ Crocodile! to Newgate. Cannibal! to my happy home in my county gaol.” You are taken to the Lodge at Newgate, informing the inferior swine all the way that not one of them will get half-a-crown a day for keeping you. The Turnkey advances to meet you, with friendly sympathy beaming in every line of his respectable and attractive face. You pay him six shillings and sixpence, which is all the Civility-money
he
expects from you. You pass on to your Ward, and pay ten and sixpence more to the Steward
ý
generally selected from among the ranks of the most charming and accomplished men of the age in which he lives. Out of this sum he distributes two shillings among the Prisoners of your Ward
ý
who love you as their brother in return. The remaining eight and sixpence goes into the pocket of the steward, and for that small sum he supplies you with good fires, candles, salt, and brooms during the whole time of your imprisonment no matter how long it may be. Compare this with the sponging house, where I paid a shilling a day for my fire and candle, and was left in the dark every evening at eight o
’
clock!

As for your meals in Newgate, it is a luxury only to think of them. You mess sociably with the prisoners of your Ward who have had your two shillings divided among them, and who love you like a brother in return. You have an excellent dinner of roast or boiled; you pay fourpence or, at most, sixpence for it; and you order what you like to drink and I are not required to pay for a drop more than you have actually consumed. When your free and solvent friends from outside come to pay you a visit, they are allowed access to you from eight in the morning till nine at night, you are at perfect liberty to talk to them as long as you please, and need have no fear that any prison authority will be mean enough to listen outside your door. When I was in the sponging-house, and when my friends came to see me, a crocodile with his ear at the key-hole was part of the necessary furniture of the establishment. Oh, the happiness of being in Newgate! you remember how my letters were treated by the swine of the sponging-house? Your letters are carried for you with the swiftest despatch by the safest of special messengers for any small gratuity you please to offer. Oh, the privilege of inhabiting one
’
s county gaol! Can words describe your life of comfort and economy as contrasted with my wretched existence of squalor and expense? No, words cannot describe it; but the superior eloquence of figures may compass the achievment. Let us, to complete the parallel, examine and compare (under the authority of B. L.) the respective daily bills that you and I have to pay
I for staying four and twenty hours in a sponging-house: you, for staying four and twenty hours in the Debtors
’
side of Newgate prison.

This is the Bill paid by the insolvent author to the Cannibal of a Sponging-House in the year seventeen hundred and twenty-four, for one night
ý
s lodging and one day
’
s expense:

This is the Bill paid by the insolvent reader to the paternal authorities of Newgate, in the year seventeen hundred and twenty-four, for one night
ý
s lodging and one day
ý
s expense: