New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1896-11-08
DICKENS AND HIS PRISONS.
A STUDY OF THOSE THAT FIGURE IN
HIS WRITINGS.
IN JAIL WITH CHARLES DICKENS. Ey a.
fred Trumble illustrated. PIP. ". iso. frah''
HARPER

IN JAIL WITH CHARLES DICKENS ny Al
fred Trumbie. Illustrated PIP. ". 100 Francis
J.. Harper.
This Is one Of those little books that cast
better light on favoritc authors idiosyncrasics
than could he obtained from more preientious
criticism. Dickens was deeply Interested IN
prison life For example. as Mr.. Trumbc re-
marks he began his first tour In the ohited
States Inv going to jail; and he went to jail
afterward whenever he found one that attracted
his particular attention. Yet he could hardly
be called a penologist In the strict sense OF Inc
term. He was as bitter in his attacks on that
model institution. the Eastern State Peniten-
tiary Of Pennsylvania. as he was on Newgate
or the Fleet. Science approves separate coniine-
ment with due care; Dickens attacked 1t with
all the resources OF his brilliant and ELUSIVE
rhetoric Everybody doubtless remembers the
lonely "Dutchman' in the american Notes ::
how Industrious and artistic he was and how
forlorn afflicted and distressed he seemed to
Dickens's imagination. Apparently the novelist
wholly misunderstood the case There was
man who was never content outside of prison
His crimes-never great ones-were committed
for the purpose OF getting into jail. and his last
responsible act was to beg place to die In be-
hind the bars. Dickens himself died worn out
before he sixty The "Dutchman" lived to
be an octogenarian. His melancholy was not
assumed II was rart OF his nature. Even
science itself Is baiilcd by such natures. But 1t
Is slowly approaching solution OF the prob
lem, while Dickens would have left It in a mist
of fearful commiseration. Against glarng
abuses the novelist waged successful! war. but
these were things which everybody saw. The
real difficulties Of prison reform often escaped
him.
His interest in prisons began In personal ex-
perencc 1t was in the Marshalsea Prison that
he first developed that marvellous skill In obser
walton which characterized him through life
David Copperfeld' was confessedy in part an
autobiography In that book the Kings Bench
Prison was prominent. But the experiences Of
Mr.. Micawber and others In that prison were
the counterpart OF the elder Dckenss in the
Marshalsea The novelist left descriptions of
both the reality and his hypothetical case. and
they agree even to attractive turns OF phrase
Indeed. they agree so well that over-ngenious
critics have been muddled by the comparison
Mr.. Trumbe prints cognate passages from the
novel and from Dickens's narrative In the
biography by Foster. and these show not merely
what an eye Dickens had for external pcculiari-
ties OF people. but what a group OF subjects he
had to study. He might have travelled far and
not found as good training school for his
imagination as the insolvent debtors prison.
The old London prisons mad much to do with
literature. Freedom" John Liburne wrote some
Of his pamphlets In the Fleet and these rough
essays Of his hold important place In the
constitutional history Of both England and
America. The Familiar Letters" OF James
Howell. or some Of them at least. were dated
from the Fleet. Smoett wrote Sir LaunceIot
Greaves'' in the Kings Bench Prison. and It was
there also that "Dr. Syntax" was written. De-
foe had occasion to write in nearly all the great
prisons Of London. Even Newgate. which au-
thors In general have escaped. opened for him
and his pen But not one OF all these contribu-
tors to English literature caught the air of the
prisons In the time Of impressionable youth al
Dickens did. and It II he who has made them