The Sanctuary created and crossed by the Church for the refuge of those who had fallen into temptation became, as we know, the resort of the rogue, the murderer, and the habitual criminal. Within the precincts of St.-Martin's-le-Grand were carried on with impunity all the trades and methods of producing things counterfeit. The Sanctuary of Westminster was a scandal and a disgrace. These places had been finally abolished after much trouble: the City officers could march their rogues to Newgate without fear of a rescue from St. Martin's. The people of Westminster could lie down at night without fear of housebreakers from Sanctuary. At the same time the custom of holding and seeking sanctuary was too deep-rooted to be quickly abolished. Perhaps there was something comfortable in the thought that there should be a place, however small, where the officers of the law were not admitted, and where rogues should be unmolested. It was a loophole for repentance, perhaps: it was a gleam of sunshine on the path of the outlaw. So the custom was continued well into the eighteenth century. In this chapter I am going to recall the memory of these later Sanctuaries. As may be imagined, literature says little about them. But it says enough to show that there were places dotted about London which served all the purposes of the old sanctuaries without the restraints of ecclesiastical government: in fact, there was no government, except on purely democratic principles. In these places lived rogues and villains of all kinds: here the thief-taker came to find{242} his man—observe that this functionary was admitted; the thief-taker ventured where the sheriff's officer could not. Why was this? Because the London rogue had a sense of justice: no man could expect to go on for ever: when a man's time was up, let him give place to his successor. The thief-taker, therefore, was a recognised official: it was his duty to assign to every man his proper length of rope. This allowance expended, it was the duty of the rogue to get up when he was called, go away quietly with the thief-taker, and get hanged in due course. Otherwise, there would have been no living to be made by the rogues on account of the competition of numbers. The name of Alsatia had been long forgotten, but the asylum still remained.

In the 'Fortunes of Nigel' we are made acquainted with the Alsatia of Fleet Street. There were other places equally secure for rogues, besides Alsatia. Such were Whetstone Park in Lincoln's Inn Fields; Fullwood's Rents, Holborn; Milford Lane, Strand; Montagu Close, Southwark; and others. All these were gradually extinguished; not by any summary procedure; not by turning out the rogues and forcing them to scatter; not by marching off the whole population to prison; but by the slower and more gradual process of transformation. This process began when the parts and places around became respectable. There is something chilling and repellent to the common rogue about the proximity of respectability: he does not like to be in its neighbourhood: in this way these degenerate and unlawful sanctuaries gradually fell into decay. One alone remained, when all the others had disappeared. It was in that part of Southwark—that part which is still a slum—called Mint Street, nearly opposite St. George's Church in the High Street. This street, with its alleys and courts, was inhabited by as villainous a collection as even the eighteenth century, which in point of villains was rich beyond its predecessors, could not equal. They had retreated here from their former{243} haunt in Montagu Close, as to a last fortress, which was not yet besieged. They lived in perfect safety here: no writ could be served on them: no arrest could be made: the only person they had to fear was, as said above, the thief-taker.

The annals of this Sanctuary were never, unfortunately, kept; it is impossible to ascertain what illustrious criminals were here housed and for how long. There are, however, one or two little histories of the Mint which will serve to show us at once the public spirit, the courage, and the immunity with which the people of the later Sanctuary lived and acted.

The first story belongs to the year 1715. The case of Dormer v. Dormer and Jones came on for hearing at Westminster Hall. It was a divorce case, in which the co-respondent had been a footman in the plaintiff's house. There seems to have been no defence, practically. The verdict of the Jury was for the plaintiff, with 5,000l. damages. Now, consider for a moment what that verdict meant. In these days, when a defendant without any private means at all is mulcted in damages and costs, whether of 5,000l. or of 100l., he simply smiles. He is not in the least degree affected. Nothing worse than bankruptcy can happen to him, and when a man has nothing bankruptcy presents few terrors. In Portugal Street subridet vacuus viator—the insolvent pilgrim smiles cheerfully. But in those days it was very different. To inflict damages of 5,000l. meant simply that the Jury considered the case one in which the defendant, who could not be tried in the criminal courts, could only be adequately punished by being locked up for the whole of his remaining days in a debtor's prison, where, since he was only a footman whose relations were probably unable to assist him and certainly unable to maintain him, he would speedily take his place on the common side, and there he would be slowly done to death by insufficient food and insufficient clothing, by privation, cold, fever and misery.{244}

The Jury therefore gave this verdict with deliberate intention. It meant prison and slow starvation and insufficient warmth, and so everybody instantly understood, including Mr. Jones himself. In a moment the officers would have laid hands upon the unhappy but undeserving footman. But he was too quick for them: he turned: he fled: he hurled himself down Westminster Hall through the crowd of ............