Chapter 14

of Volume 2 of "Nicholas Nickleby," by the way, Dickens adverts to a feature of the law of which the King's Bench was one of the outgrowths, in connection with the first visit of Nicholas to Madeline Bray.

"The place to which Mr. Cheeryble had directed him was a row of mean and not over cleanly houses, situated within the 'Rules' of the King's Bench Prison, and not many hundred paces distant from the obelisk in St. George's Fields. The Rules are a certain liberty adjoining the prison, and comprising some dozen streets in which debtors who can raise money to pay large fees, from which their creditors do not derive any benefit, are permitted to reside by the wise provisions of the same enlightened laws which leave the debtor who can raise no money to starve in gaol, without food, clothing, lodging, or warmth, which are provided for felons convicted of the most atrocious crimes that can disgrace humanity. There are many pleasant fictions of the law in constant operation, but there is not one so pleasant or practically humorous as that which supposes every man to be of equal value in its impartial eye, and the benefits of all laws to be equally obtainable by all men, without the smallest reference to the furniture of their pockets.

"To the row of houses indicated to him by Mr. Charles Cheeryble, Nicholas directed his steps without much troubling his head about such matters as these; and at this row of houses--after traversing a very dirty and dusty suburb of which minor theatricals, shell-fish, ginger-beer, spring vans, green grocery and brokers' shops appeared to compose the main and most prominent features--he at length arrived with a palpitating heart. There were small gardens in the front which, being wholly neglected in all other respects, served as little pens for the dust to collect in, until the wind came around the corner and blew it down the road. Opening the rickety gate which, dangling on its broken hinges, before one of these, half admitted and half repulsed the visitor, Nicholas knocked at the street door with a faltering hand.

"It was, in truth, a shabby house outside, with very dim parlor windows and very small show of blinds, and very dirty muslin curtain dangling across the lower panes on very loose and limp strings. Neither, when the door was opened, did the inside appear to belie the outward promise, as there was a faded carpeting on the stairs and faded oil-cloth in the passage; in addition to which discomforts a gentleman Ruler was smoking hard in the front parlor (though it was not yet noon), while the lady of the house was busily engaged in turpentining the disjointed fragments of a tent-bedstead at the door of the back parlor, as if in preparation for the reception of some new lodger who had been fortunate enough to engage it."

The Fleet had its rules like the King's Bench, but there was no such legalized stretching of the bounds of confinement tolerated at the Marshalsea. There the prisoner was supposed to remain a close prisoner within the walls until the courts ordained his release. In fact, however, if he had money he might buy sly periods of liberty under the eye of the keeper, and this abuse of his office brought the Marshal and his subordinates many a sovereign above their legitimate emoluments. One young gentleman of sporting proclivities, who was committed to the Marshalsea while his lawyer was settling up the wreck of his handsome patrimonial estate, afterwards published an account of his experiences as a detained debtor. From this it appears that during the entire term of his detention he was a regular spectator at the cock fights, dog fights and prize fights, of the day, and that he kept his wherry on the Thames, and went out for a row whenever he felt the need of air and exercise. The keeper who accompanied him on these excursions, and who was of a sporting turn himself, left the prison to enter his employ, and was his faithful henchman at the time he printed his book, in the most genteel and elegant style, for circulation among his friends.

It is curious to note that even to our own day, and in our own country, this system of prison favoritism is not entirely unknown. If a man is arrested on a judgment for debt, he can, if he knows the way, save himself from being locked up for a night at least by paying the sheriff's deputy for it. To be sure the deputy will have to be in his company until he is duly handed over at Ludlow street Jail, and properly receipted for, but there are such things as double bedded rooms in New York hotels. In the same way, it is shrewdly suspected, prisoners in Ludlow street who can pay for it can enjoy a night out once in a while. It used to be so at least; and by the evidence brought out by investigations in the past it was not even an unusual occurrence. It is popularly believed, by the way, that there is no such thing in New York state as imprisonment for debt. Some native realist in the line of fiction ought to take a turn over to the east side of the commercial metropolis of the United States, and weave his experiences of the Ludlow street cage into some such shape as Dickens did his of the Fleet, the Marshalsea, and the King's Bench.

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