“......Would you see The Debtors' world, confide yourself to me.
Come; safely shall you pass the fatal door,
Nor fear it shuts you in, to ope no more.
See, frowning grimly o'er the Borough Road,
The crossing spikes that crown the dark abode!
O! how that iron seems to pierce the soul
Of him, whom hurrying wheels to prison roll,
What time from Serjeants' Inn some Debtor pale
The Tipstaff renders in default of bail.
Black shows that grisly ridge against the sky,
As near he draws and lifts an anxious eye:
Then on his bosom each peculiar spike,
Arm'd with its proper ill, appears to strike.”
 
THE recollection of past enjoyments in the vivacious company of Merry well, could not fail to be revived in the minds of Dashall and his Cousin; and as some persons, with due attention to his safety, had manifested their interest and regard for him by obtaining his admission to the Priory, where he was at this moment pursuing his studies, and could not quite so conveniently call on them, an early visit was determined on.
“We shall,” said Tom, “by a call on Merrywell after six weeks residence among the gay blades that inhabit the walls of the King's Bench, have all the benefit of his previous observation. He will be able to delineate the characters, consciences, and conduct of his neighbours. He will describe all the comforts and advantages of a college life, introduce us to the Bloods and the Blacks, and, in short, there are few persons I know, except Sparkle himself, more able to conduct us through the intricacies of the Building, to point out the beauty and excellence of the establishment, its uses and abuses, than Merrywell.”
“Do they charge any thing on admittance?"enquired Bob.
“O yes,” was the reply, “they charge you, by a public [35] notice in the lobby, not to convey into the interior any spirituous liquors, on pain of being yourself discharged from thence, and confined elsewhere. Bless your soul, why the King's Bench is a little world within itself, a sort of epitome of London; it is in a healthy situation, and the space which it occupies is extensive. There are in all 224 rooms, and they measure each about 14 or 16 feet by 12 or 13; of these, eight are called State-rooms, are much larger than the rest, and more commodious; and a well-breech'd customer may have almost any accommodation. It is the prison most immediately belonging to the Court of King's Bench, and, exclusive of debtors there sued, all persons standing in contempt of that Court, and most of those committed under its sentence, are confined.”
“And pretty generally all inhabited?” interrogated Tallyho.
“Yes, and frequently it is difficult to obtain a place to sleep in even as a chum.”
Bob found himself at fault, and required an explanation of the word chum.
“The chum,” replied Dashall, “is a partner or bed-fellow, a person who has an equal right to all the comforts and conveniences of a room, previously wholly in the possession of one.”
“I understand,” said Bob; “then when every room has already one occupant, they accommodate him with a companion.”
“Exactly so, and he may prove friend or foe. This, however, may be avoided, if the student is in possession of the rubbish, by an escape into the Rules, which extend for three miles round the priory. These Rules are purchaseable after the following rate, viz. Ten guineas for the first hundred pounds, and about half that sum for every hundred pounds afterwards; day-rules, of which three may be obtained in every term, may be purchased for 4s. 2d. for the first day, and 3s. 10d. for the rest. Each also must give good security to the Marshal.[36]
“——The fiction of the law supposes,
That every prisoner, with means to pay,
(For he that has not this advantage loses,)
Either has business in the courts, or may;
Bond, fee, and sureties fresh prepare the way
And Mister Broothoft's manual sign declares
?That Mister such-a-one, on such a day,
?Hath got a rule of Court, and so repairs
?To town, or elsewhere, call'd by his affairs.'
 
This little Talisman of strange effect,
(Four shillings just and sixpence is the price)
From Bailiff's power the wearer will protect,
And nullify a Capias in a trice:
It bears a royal head in quaint device,
At least as true as that which Wellesley Pole,
With taste for English artists much too nice,
Stamp'd by Pistrucci's aid (Heaven rest his soul!
And shield henceforth the Mint from his controul.)
 
In various ways the various purchasers
That sally forth with this protecting spell,
Employ the privilege this grant confers:
Some, like myself, their lawyer's citadel
Besiege, his speed long striving to impel;
To take a dinner with a friend some go;
In fashion's haunts some for an hour to swell;
Some strive, what creditors intend, to know;
And some the moments on their love bestow.”
 
“Thus you have a full, true, and particular, as well as amusing account, of a Day Rule, or what in the cant language of the day is termed hiring a horse, which sometimes proves a bolter.”
“And what is meant by a bolter?”
“He is one,” replied Dashall, “who, having obtained the privilege of a Day Rule, brushes off, and leaves his bondsmen, or the Marshal, to pay his debt; or one who transgresses the bounds; but such a one when retaken, usually undergoes some discipline from the inhabitants of the College, who being all honourable men, set their faces against such ungentleman-like proceedings.”
“Then they do sometimes make an escape?”
“Yes, notwithstanding their restrictive arrangements, such things have occurred, and you must recollect that of Lord Cochrane, confined for the memorable Stock Exchange hoax. The means by which it was effected, I believe, have never been discovered; but certain it is, that he was in the House of Commons, while a prisoner in the King's Bench, and on the first night of his subsequent liberation, gave the casting vote against a proposed grant to a certain Duke.”
“I remember it very well, and also remember that the generality of thinking persons considered his Lordship harshly treated.”
[37] “However, he is now bravely fighting the battles of independence, increasing both his fame and fortune, while some of the Ministerial hirelings are subjected to a similar privation. We shall have a view of some of the residents in this renowned place of fashionable resort; the interior of which perhaps exhibits a spectacle far more diversified, and if possible more immoral and vicious, than the exterior. There are quondam gentlemen of fortune, reduced either so low as not to be able to pay for the Rules, or so unprincipled and degraded as to have no friend at command who could with safety become their surety. Shop-keepers, whose knavery having distanced even their extravagance, dread the appearance of ease exhibited in the Rules and the detection of fraud, by producing the reverse of their independence, and who even grudge the expenditure of money, to obtain limited liberty. Uncertificated bankrupts, and unconvicted felons; Jews—gamblers by trade—horse-dealers—money scriveners—bill discounters—annuity procurers—disinterested profligates—unemployed and branded attorneys—scandal mongers and libel writers—Gazetted publicans, and the perhaps less culpable sinners of broken officers—reduced mechanics—starving authors, and cast-off Cyprians.”
“A very comprehensive and animated account truly,” said Tallyho.
“And you will find it accurate,” continued Dashall, “for the turn-out of this dwelling of crime and misery, resembles the Piazza de Sant Marco at Venice, in the Carnival time. There are all descriptions and classes in society, all casts and sects, all tribes and associations, all colours, complexions and appearances, not only of human and inhuman beings, but also all shades, features, and conformations of vice. The Spendthrift, or degraded man of fortune, lives by shifts, by schemes, by loans, by sponging on the novice, by subscription, or on commiseration's uncertain aid. He has however in perspective some visionary scheme of emolument and dishonour blended, to put into execution as soon as he obtains his discharge. The uncertificated Bankrupt has many opportunities left yet; he has other dupes, other tricks of trade, other resources in reserve. The Swindler mellows, refines, and sublimates his plan of future operations, and associates in it, perchance, a fallen fair one, or an incipient Greek, [38] put up in the Bench. Horse-dealers, money scriveners, bill doers, attorneys, &c. have either the means of setting up again, or some new system of roguery to be put in practice, in fresh time and place, which may conduct them to the harbour of Fortune, or waft them over the herring pond at the expence of the public purse. The disinterested Profligate here either consumes, corrupts, and festers, under the brandy fever and despair, or is put up by a gambler, who sells his art to his brother debtors, and thus lives in hope of yet turning the honest penny in imitation of those who have gone before him. The Cyprian, still exercising her allurements, lingers and decays until persecution loses the point of its arrow, and drops from the persecutor's hand, grasping more hardly after money, and opening from the clenched attitude of revenge. Then, to conclude the picture, there are youths living upon the open infamy of easy-hearted women, who disgrace and ruin themselves without the walls, in order to pamper the appetite and humour the whims of a favourite within, thus sacrificing one victim to another. Partners carrying on trade in the world, communing with their incarcerated partners in durance vile. Misery and extravagance, rude joy and frantic fear, with more passions than the celebrated Collins ever drew, and with more scenes, adventures, and vicissitudes, than ever Jonathan Wild or any other Jonathan exhibited.”
“Excellent description,” exclaimed Bob.
“And you shall have ocular demonstration of its absolute existence; nay, this sketch might serve for many other places of confinement, the Fleet, &c. They are like the streets of the Metropolis, constantly varying in their company, according to entrances and exits of their visitors.”
“This, however,” continued the Hon. Tom Dashall, “is rather a mental picture of what we shall presently witness in reality, a sort of introductory sketch by way of passport through the doors of this Panorama of Beal Life, to which you will shortly be introduced; a sort of ideal, or dramatic sketch of its inhabitants en masse, before the drawing up of the curtain.”
The eagerness of Bob to listen to his Cousin's sketches of London society, on the one hand, and the earnestness with which Dashall had been exercising his imaginary powers, on the other, had led our perambulators to the [39] foot of Blackfriar's Bridge, on their road to the King's Bench, without any particular circumstance exciting their attention; when Bob, suddenly twitching his Cousin by the arm, and directing his eye at the same time to a thin spare figure of a man, without hat or coat, who was rapidly passing towards Fleet market, enquired who it was, and what was his occupation or calling.
“Don't you hear his calling?” was the reply.
“Hot, hot, hot, pudding hot!” was in a moment vociferated in his ears, while the active and industrious mercantile pedestrian, with a swing of his head, which was in continual motion from right to left, gave Bob a wipe in the eye with his tail, which by the velocity of the wearer was kept in full play like the pendulum of a clock, or the tail of Matthews in his admirable delineation of Sir Fretful Plagiary.
“Zounds,” cries Bob, “it is true I may hear, but I can't pretend to say I can see; who the devil is he? there is no looking at him, he seems to leave time and space behind him; where is he?”
Tom laughed heartily, while Bob rubbed his eyes in vain to obtain another view.
“That,” said Dashall, “is a sort of Commissary, a dealer in stores for the stomach—red hot pudding, all hot, and commonly called the Flying Pieman."{1}[40]
1 James Sharpe Eglaud, more commonly known in the streets of
the Metropolis by the appellation of the Flying Pieman, may
fairly be held forth as an example of what may be effected
by persevering industry and activity, especially in a large
and populous city. Those qualities, joined with a moderate
share of prudence, cannot fail to ensure to every man at
least comfort and respectability, it” not competence and
wealth, however humble his sphere, and however unpromising
his beginnings. He was bred to the sedentary trade of a
tailor, and worked for some years with his relation, Mr.
Austerbury, of Friday Street, Cheapside; but love, which
works so many changes, and which has ere now transformed
blacksmiths into painters, and which induced Hercules to
exchange his club for the distaff, caused this Knight of the
Steel Bar to relinquish the shop-board and patch up his
fortune by the patty-pan. He married his landlady, a widow,
who resided in Turnmill Street, Clerkenwell. He had a soul
above buttons, and abandoned the making of garments to cover
the outside, in order to mould cakes, pies, and other small
pastry, to comfort the internals. His active genius,
however, could not brook the tedious task of serving his
customers behind the counter; he therefore took up his
eatables and went abroad in quest of them, and we doubt not
he has found this practice, which he has continued ever
since, very profitable. The neatness and cleanliness of his
appearance at all times are truly pleasing. Hail, rain, or
shine, he may be seen abroad without coat or hat; his hair
powdered, his shirt sleeves turned up to his elbows, and a
steel hanging on his apron-string. Originally he carried a
tin case, something like a Dutch oven, in which he
constantly kept a lire, but is now generally seen with a
small tray. In serving a customer, he never touches his
pudding with his hands, but has a knife for the purpose of
presenting it to the purchasers, and his sale is so
extensive, that he is obliged to replenish several times in
a day; and in order to secure a regular and ready supply,
his female partner and himself convey a quantity of pudding
to a certain distance, and deposit their load at some
public-house, where she takes care to keep it “all hot,”
 while Egland scours the neighbourhood in search of
customers. The first cargo being disposed of he returns for
more, and by ............