Year: 1860

Thrilling Story.


at matters little when, or how, l pick
ed up this brief history. If l were to re-
late in the order in which it reached me, l
should commence in the middle, and when
had arrived at the conclusion 60 back
for beginning. 1t is enough for me to
say that some of its circumstances passed
my own eyes; for the remainder, l know
them to have happened, and there are
some persons yet living, who we'll remem-
Der them but too well.


ain the Borough High street, near Saint
Georges Church, and on the same side of
the way, stands as most people know, the
smallest of our debtors prisons-the Mar
shalsea. Although in later times it has
been very different place from the sink
of filth and dirt it once was, even its Im-
proved condition holds out but little temp
iation to the extravagant or consolation to
the improvident. The condemned felon
has good yard for air and exercise in
Newgate, as the insolyent debtor in the
Marshalsea Prison.


alt may be my fancy, or it may be that
cannot seperate the place from the old
recollections associated with it, this part of
London l cannot bear. This street is
broad, the shops are spacious, the noise Of
passing vehicles, the footsteps of the per-
petual stream of people-all the busy
sounds of traffic, resound in it from morn
TO midnight, but the streets around me are
mean and close; poverty and debauchery
fostering in the crowded alleys, want and
misfortune are pent up in the narrow pris-
on; an air of gloom and dreariness seems,
in my eyes at least, TO hang about the
scene, and to impart to it squalid and sick
ly hue.


"Many eyes. that have long since been
closed in the grave, have looked around
upon that scene lightly enough when en-
tering the gate of the Marshalsea Prison
for the first time; for despair seldom comes
with the first shock of misfortune. A
man has confidence in untried friends, he
remembers the many offers of service SO
freely made by his boon companion when
be wanted them not; he has hope-the
hope of happy inexperience-and however
he may bend beneath the first shock, it
springs up in his bosom, and fourisbes
there for brief space, until it drops be-
meath the blight of disappointed neglect.
How soon those same eyes deeply sunken
in the head, glared from faces wasted with
famine, and salow from confinement in
days when il was no figure of speech to
say that debtors rotted in prison, with no
hope of release, and no prospect of liberty
The atrocity, in its full extent, no longer
exists, but there is enough of left to give
rise to occurrences that make the heart
bleed.


"Twenty years ago, that pavement was
worn with the footstepts of a mother and
child, ,who,day by day,so surely as the morn
ing came presented themselves at the pris-
on gate; often after night of restless mis-
cry and anxious thoughts were they there,
a full hour too soon, and then the young
mother turning meekly away, would lead
the child to the old bridge, and raising
him in her arms to show him the glisten-
ing water, tinted with the light of the
mornings sun, and stirring with all the
bustling preparations for business and
pleasure that the river presents at that ear
ly hour, endeavor to interest his thoughts
in the objects before him. But she would
quickly set him down, and hiding her face
in her shawl, give vent to the tear that
blinded her, for no expression of interest
or amusement lighted up bis thin and sick
ly face. His recollections were few enough,
but they were all of one kind-all con-
nected with the poverty and misery of his
parents. Hour after hour had he sat on
bis mothers knee, and with childish sym.
pathy watched the tears that stole down
her face, and then crept quickly away into
some dark corner, and sobbed himself to
sleep. The hard realities of the world,
with many of its worst privations-hun,
ger and thirst, and cold and want-had all
come to him from the first dawnings Of
reason; its light heart, its merry laugh, and
sparkling eyes we're wanting.


"The father and mother looked on upon
this and upon each other with thoughts Of
agony they dared not breathe in words
The healthy, strong made man who would
have borne almost any fatiguge of active
exertion, was wasting beneath the close
confinement and unhealthy atmosphere of a
crowded prison. The slight and delicate
woman was sinking beneath the combined
effects of mental ard bodily illness; the
child's young heart was breaking.


"Winter came, and with it weeks o.
cold and heavy rain. The poor girl had
removed to a wrelched apartment close tc
the spot of her husbands imprisonment
and though the change had been rendered
absolutely necessary by their increasing
poverty, she was happier now for she was
nearer him. For two months, she and
her little companion watched the opening
of the gate as usual. One day she failed
to come, for the first time. Another
morning arrived, she came alone. The
child was dead.


"They little know, who coldly talk o
5 the poor mans bereavements, as a happy
release from pain to the departed, and I
merciful release from expense to the sur
: vivor-they little know, say, what thu
agony of those bereavements is. A silen
] look of affection and regard when all oLhe
eyes are turned coldly away-the conscious
ness that we possess the sympathy and af
faction of one BEING when all others have de