The Express.
London, England, 1858-11-08 00:00:00

WHITECROSS-BTREET DEBTORS
PRISON.

It is just possible that one or two of our readers
may have casually heard of the existence of &debtors
prison in Whitecross-street, but it is certain that not
sae of them, except when impelled by " urgent
private affairs," would ever trouble himself with
actual inspection of that dismal looking edifice. The
locality lies far away from the arterial streams of
London traffic, and has to be found out by the un-
initiated stranger only. after long and tedious ex-
plorations, many inquiries of persons who smile in-
credulously at him while they give him the requisite
information, and passage through scenes which
were once the glory and shame of northern London,
but which now, like Tadmor in the wilderness, only
excite melancholy reflections on the mutability of all
mundane magnificence. For right on the track lies
the now dreary waste which was once Smithfield
market, still studded with deserted pales and empty
sheep-pens, but no longer resounding with the deep
bellow of the impatient ox, the frightened bleating
of the overcrowded sheep, or that far more obstreper-
ous clamour which some philologists believe to
represent a dialect of the ancient Celtic lan-
guage. The public-houses and the coffee-shops and
the eating-houses, which used to blase with gaslight
and be filled with burly customers as early as five
o'clock of a winter's morning, are now for the moat
part gone, and the remainder obviously and gradually
wasting away under the blight of recent legislation,
sure to die the moment that the gains of happier
days are exhausted. Long-lane, although in a
lesser degree, shares in the general marasmus, and
many of the homes stagger so much under the
shock of their great misfortune that it bas been
found necessary to shore them up with great beams
stretching half across the street, and which would
very much obstruct the traffic only that unfortunately
the traffic has fled to airier and more elevated
regions. Barbican, once a great centre of ail the
commerce that has reference to beeves, is now only
• geographical curiosity, to be visited once in a life-
time by the curious, and only used as a thoroughfare
because it leads directly to the prison, where not-
withstanding all the recent improvements in our
commercial laws their great blot still lingers, and
where all the evils are repeated on a small scale
which once made the whole world cry shame on the
Fleet, the Queen's Bench, and the Marshallese.
It seems strange that when imprisonment for debt
was abolished to such an extent as to render useless
and tenantless all the great receptacles for mis-
fortune or fraud, so much of it should still be re-
tained as, while calculated to do an immense amount
of moral and social mischief, can be little more in
the way of security to the creditor than a mere drop
in the ocean. And yet so it is ; the Debtors 'Prison
in Whitacre's-street, which could not, if it were
aremmed to the doors, accommodate one per cent. of
dm impecuniosity of London, flourishes still on its
dark, dingy, grew, smoky, miserable site, and daily
sees repeatedirithin its walls scenes almost as bad
as those which shocked the good Vicar of Wake-
field, or supplied the coarsest chapters to the novels
of Fielding and Smollett. Up to a very recent
ppssri'ad indeed all the evils of imprisonment for debt
Soueished here in their fall, hideous vitality. Clergy
mss, seisms of nobility (there are a few in" still
)
bereasto, ex-senators, field officers of the army (the
race is not quite extinct), and many other members of
the " upper ten thousand," were to be found mixed
ep with fraudulent tradesmen, hard-up cardsharpers,
lawyers who had gone too deeply into the subtleties
of their profession, and women who if they had gone
in as pure as vestals were sure to come out thoroughly
tainted with the corruption of the place, and totally
lost to the honours of a name, the claims of a kindred,
sad the dececcies of self-respect. Latterly, however,
• tensiderable improvement has been effected,
although, in our j udgme nt, nothing less than the actual
cautery will reach the seat of the disease. So lately
as two years ago all the evils and abuses of a debtors
prison were to be found in Whiteeross-street, but
since then the authorities have been fortunate in
securing the services of Captain Hicks, a military
officer, full of energy and zeal, as governor, and
since that gentleman's accession to office much has
been done to mitigate the mischiefs of the prison.
Captain Hicks has recently published a little
brochure, sketching out his views of further ameliora-
tion, and it was the appearance of this pamphlet
which directed our attention to the subject. In
order that these views may be understood while we
state them, it will be necessary to say one or two
preliminary words with reference to the present
interim' eeonaniy of Whitecroes-street.
Firm, and as the result of our own observation,
we must premise that it would be difficult for the
most perverse ingenuity to find a place more singu-
larly ill adapted for the temporary incarceration of
a number of human beings, unless it was intended
that the sentence of imprisonment should comprehend
the destruction of all nervous vitality, prostration of
physical health, and future unfitness for active or
respectable occupation. The building, which was
erected about forty years since, is in fact huddled
together in the most unskilful and inappropriate
manner, the ceilings are low, and the rooms misera-
bly lighted, while the yards for exercise are ridicu-
lously small and so surrounded by buildings as to
render the possession of a sufficient supply of pure
atmospheric air a luxury totally beyond attainment.
Everything that the most rigid discipline and the
most perfect cleanliness could effect has been done
by the present governor to make the wretched den
sweet and wholesome, but still it would be impos-
sible in our judgment for any man to remain three
months in Whitecross-street prison without becoming
physically weaker and morally worse from the con-
finement in a noxious climate, and the contamination
which want of sufficient means of classification had
exposed him to during his confinement.
Such classification as has been found possible has
been made according to the following arrangement.
There is a first clam of " gentlemen,' which in the
prison phraseology means persons who can support
themselves, and upon these there is little restraint
beyond that which is afforded by the external walls
of the prison. As it is one of the curses of impri-
sonment for debt that the prisoner comes after a
while to like his prison, to forget his external asso-
ciates, and to prefer the license of perpetual undress,
and the freedom of a promiscuous society. An attempt
is made to get rid of the prisoners in this class, by
transferring them, after a certain period, into the
third, where they are supposed to submit to the
prison regulations, the most onerous of which is of
course that which prohibits the introduction of beer
or spirits. A way of evading this is, however,
soon found. Such prisoners as are on the sick list
are exempt, and it is a singular fact that in the ma-
jority of instances the transferred prisoners become
indisposed on the first day of their migration, and
seldom quits recover their health during their stay
in the prison. It will hardly be believed that men
born and reared in a good sphere of society are still
to be found wasting the prime of their lives within
these narrow walls, and becoming, day by day, more
and more reconciled to their situation, and more un-
willing to emerge into the world without. The second
clue epeeists of persons of smaller means, who,
when their means are exhausted, are transferred to
the fourth, where they have to live on the prison
dietary, and to trust to the "charity money, as it
is called, for the means of " going through the
evert." 'flue dietary consists of two pints of cocoa,
a pound and a half of bread, half a pound of pota-
toes, and three ounces of cooked meat per diem, the
meat alternately with a pint of soup. We had a
look at the kitchen in which this food is prepared,
and must in conscience make it an exception to the
general cleanliness and good order of the prison. A
men dismal, unhealthy-looking hole was never de-
voted to culinary purposes, and, there being no
aperture to let off the waste steam, the atmosphere
is a perpetual hot vapour-bath, in which the unfor-
tunate soak shimmers uteri/ as rapidly as either
hie pea or potatoes. The late cook was
TIMM' bendy in time to save his life ; and
the punt, although a young and strong man,