Читать книгу Eighteen Months' Imprisonment - Donald late captain Shaw - Страница 3

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On a dreary afternoon in November, cheerless and foggy as befitted the occasion, and accompanied by that gentle rain which we are told “falleth on the just and on the unjust,” I suddenly, though hardly unexpectedly, found myself in the hands of the law, as represented by a burly policeman in a waterproof cape and a strong Somersetshire accent. The circumstances that led up to this momentous change can be briefly described. I had gone to the office of a solicitor—one White, with whom I had had previous monetary transactions—with reference to a new loan on a bill of exchange; and it must be distinctly understood that any allusions I may make to this individual’s vocations are not to be misinterpreted, for I have the highest respect for his integrity and aptitude for business, legal or otherwise, and cannot but admire (as I’m sure every honest reader will) the horror with which any dishonest act inspired him, which, though it did not deter him from conscientiously completing the transaction as a matter of business, was equally swift in retributive justice, and condemnatory (to use his own expression) of compounding a felony. Mr. White, in short, is a money-lender, who, in addition to the advantages derivable from his legal assistance, is always prepared on undoubted security—such as a bill of sale or a promissory note—to make cash advances at the rate of 240 per cent. I am justified in quoting this as the gentleman’s rate of interest, for I paid him £5 for a loan of £45 for fourteen days, a transaction that his cheque on a Holborn bank will testify. The only marvel that suggests itself to my mind is, that a person who is so scrupulous in refusing to “compound a felony,” as he termed it when he assisted in involving me in the meshes of the law, should retain the ill-gotten and usurious sum of £5 one moment after he was aware (as he has been for a year) that it was the proceeds of a forgery. But perhaps I am wronging the worthy man; he may have subscribed it towards the Hunt he honours with his patronage, or have paid it as his subscription to the London and Discounty Club, to which, I presume, he belongs.

At first sight this rate of interest may appear somewhat high, but a moment’s reflection will dispel the idea. Here was a gentleman, a member of the honourable profession of the law—one who (as he told me) actually hunted with Her Majesty’s hounds, and, for aught I know, may have been honoured with a nod from the Master of the Buckhounds—one, moreover, who occasionally dined with impecunious Irish lords, with whom he had transacted business, and talked of such aristocratic clubs as the “Wanderers’” and the “Beaconsfield” with as much sang-froid and a degree of familiarity such as you and I, gentle reader, might refer to the “Magpie and Stump” at Holloway, and which to me at the time was truly appalling; here, I say, was a gentleman endowed with all these recommendations actually condescending to minister to one’s pecuniary wants; and one would indeed have been unworthy of such advantages had one carped or squabbled over such vulgar trifles as a paltry 240 per cent. There is certainly another point of view from which this “financial” business may be regarded; but if the Master of the Rolls and the “Incorporated Law Society” take no exception to this occupation of one of their members, it is clearly no business of ours to find fault with a gentleman who materially adds to his income by combining the profitable trade of usury with the profitless profession of the law.

It is a prevalent and very erroneous impression to associate voracity and sharp dealings with the Hebrew race, for I’ve found from experience (and I’m admittedly an authority) that for meanness, haggling, and exorbitant terms, with a cloak of hypocrisy to cover this multitude of sins, the Hebrew is considerably out-distanced by his Christian confrère. I might indeed go a step further, and add, that, barring a repellent manner during the preliminaries of a transaction, but which is purely superficial, the dealings of the children of Israel are based on strictly honourable and considerate grounds. No one has ever heard of a Jew robbing you first and then prosecuting you; they are invariably satisfied with one course or the other. (I may here be permitted a slight digression to note that I intend ere long to publish a list of usurers never before attempted, based on my personal experience of them, including members of almost every trade and profession, and which for completeness and accuracy of detail will put to the blush the hitherto feeble attempts of such society journals as Town Talk, Truth, &c.)

At about four o’clock, then, on this dreary November afternoon I found myself with three or four others in Mr. White’s waiting-room. I verily believe one of my companions was a detective, a suspicion that subsequent events tend to confirm. In the frowzy room I found myself waiting for more than an hour, during which time my naturally ’cute disposition, coupled with a consciousness of guilt, convinced me with a “suspeeciun” similar to that of the old lady at the subscription ball at Peebles, “amoonting to a positive ceertainty” that something was up. This apprehension was by no means allayed by my distinctly seeing the shadow of the burly policeman, in cape and helmet, on the frosted window, as he ascended the stairs; and had I been so inclined, there was nothing to have prevented me from at once burning the damning document then in my pocket and walking down-stairs. But I was perfectly callous and indifferent to the result; indeed, I can only attribute my feelings at the time to those of a madman who hailed with delight any change that substituted incarceration and an unburthened mind for liberty and an uneasy conscience. The rest of the incidents in this prologue are easily told, and the next ten minutes (which abounded with sayings and doings, however commendable from a moral point of view, sadly out of place in a usurer’s parlour) found me in a cab, in company with a policeman, with Mr. White, money-lender, solicitor, and commissioner to administer oaths, on the box, his ‘fishy’ partner inside, and driving at the rapid rate habitual to the fleetest four-wheelers of three miles an hour en route to Bow Street. Luck now favoured me, and I was fortunate enough to obtain an interview with Mr. Vaughan, who was on the eve of departure, and who, in a few hurried and well-chosen words, and in a metallic tone of voice that I can only, with all respect, compare to the vibrations of the telephone, which I heard some years ago in its infancy, conveyed to me the momentous intelligence that I was remanded till Tuesday. This was by no means my first appearance at Bow Street Police Court, for though not on so serious a charge as the present, I had on a former occasion made the acquaintance (officially) of the worthy magistrate. The circumstances are briefly these, and though in no way bearing on my present narrative, may be reasonably introduced, as a combination of sweets and bitters, such as one gleans by the advertisements, are to be associated with “chow-chow,” “nabob pickles,” &c., &c. Some four years ago I had the honour of accompanying a well-known but not equally appreciated young baronet, and High Sheriff of an Irish county, notorious for his “Orange” (and orange-bitters with a dash of gin) proclivities, to a low music-hall. The weather was hot, and the evening an exceptionally warm one in June, such an one, indeed, that the most abstemious might have been pardoned for exceeding the bounds of moderation. About midnight we presented ourselves at the portals of that virtuous but defunct institution, and were refused a box on the plea of inebriation. So indignant, however, were both myself and my blue-blooded if not blue-ribboned companion at this monstrous insinuation that we at once proceeded to Bow Street, and laid a formal complaint with the inspector on night duty. The books, and probably that official’s marginal notes, would doubtless place facts and our respective intellectual conditions at the time beyond the shadow of a doubt. For my own part, I confess (with that frankness that has always been my ruin) that if I was not absolutely inebriated, I was decidedly “fresh.” As regards my companion, however, I will not presume to venture an opinion, although High Sheriffs admittedly never get drunk;—is it likely, then, that this one, the pride of his county and an ornament to its Bench, could so far forget himself? Absurd! The sequel, however, has yet to be told; and a few nights afterwards, about 9 P.M., alone, and disguised as a gentleman in evening clothes, I went to the Night House and requested to see the proprietor. A bilious individual hereupon came into the passage, and, supported by a crowd of “chuckers out,” hurled me on to the verandah, where luck and my proximity to the worthy publican enabled me to deal one blow on a face, which eventually turned out to be that of Barnabas Amos; but a member of “the force” happened to be passing, and the gentle Amos, not content with having previously taken the law into his own hands with questionable success, now appealed to the constable, and, in short, gave me in charge for an assault. I will not weary the reader by a description of my detention for twenty minutes in the police station, till I was bailed out by a householder; nor of the proceedings next morning before the magistrate. Suffice it to say that the case was dismissed; that the daily papers honoured me by devoting half a column to a report of the case; that six months after, alone and unaided, I opposed the renewal of the licence for the night-house; that my thirst for revenge was thoroughly satiated; and that I had the gratification of depriving the Amos of a weekly profit of £300, besides about £500 for legal expenses; and that the Middlesex magistrates did their duty and proved themselves worthy of their responsible position by almost unanimously refusing the licence, despite the fervid and well fee’d eloquence of Solicitor-General and voracious barristers, and thus stamped out about as festering a heap of filth and garbage as any that had ever infested this modern Babylon. Mr. Barnabas Amos and I were thenceforth quits, and, barring a chuckle he no doubt had at my subsequent troubles (such as a less magnanimous person than myself might have had at his eventual bankruptcy), I may fairly congratulate myself on having had the best of the little encounter. But another feature of this case suggests itself, and I cannot dismiss this long digression without a few words in conclusion. My quasi friend, the High Sheriff, did not come well out of this matter. We had, as it were, rowed in the same boat on this eventful night, we had both been refused a box on the same grounds, and yet he left me to bear, not only the brunt of the police-court row, but, by a judicious silence, got me the credit of having tried but signally failed to lead him from the paths of rectitude and virtue. I am prepared to make every allowance for a man in his position, lately married to a young and innocent wife, whose ears it was only right should not be polluted with such revelations as a night-house would naturally suggest if associated with her husband’s name; and I was perfectly alive to the necessity of screening him, and willing that my name only (as it did) should appear in the proceedings; nevertheless, there is a right and a wrong way of attaining such an end, and the High Sheriff will, I am convinced, on reflection, admit that he might have attained the same result in a more straightforward manner, and have spared the feelings of his bride and possibly her younger sisters equally as well without leaving a “pal”—to use a vulgar expression—in the lurch without an apology. With this digression I will return (in the spirit) to Bow Street, and close the chapter with a bang such as accompanied the closing of my cell door, and await the arrival of “Black Maria.”