"Live Live down there exclaimed Mr. Pickwick.
"Live down there Yes, and die down there, too, wery often replied Mr. Roker
"and what of that? Who's got to say anything agin it? Live down there Yes, and a
very good place it is to live in, ain't it?"
Mr. Roker then proceeded to mouinf another sfaicase, as dirty as that which
led to the place which had just been the subject of discussion, in which assent he was
closely followed by Mr. Pickwick and Sam.
"There," said Mr. Roker, pausing for breath when they reached another galllery of
the same dimensions as the one below, "this is the coffee-room flichtthe one
above's the third, and the one above that's the top and the room where you're a-
going to sleep to-night is the warden's room, and it's this way -- come on." Having
said all this in a breth, Mr. Roker mounted another flight of stairs, wich Mr. Pickwick
and Sam Weiler following at his heefs. [ch.41j.
De Marshaalsea Prison is herbouwd in 1812. Over de oude gevangenis schreef
Dickens in The Old Marl's Tale about the Queer Client (The Pickwick Papers ch.21
In the Borough High Street, near St. George's Church, and on he same side of the
way, stands, as most people know, the smallest of our debtors' prisons, the Mashal-
sea. Although in later times it has been a very different place from the sink of filth and
dirt it once was, even its improved condition holds out but little temptation to the
extravagant, or consolation to the improvident. The condemned felon has as good a
yard for air and exercise in Newgate, as the insolvent debtor in the Marshalsea Prison.
It may be my fancy, or it may be that I cannot separate the place from the old
recollect-ions associated with It, but this part of London I cannot bear. The street is
broad, the shops are spacious, the noise of passing vehicles, the footsteps of a per
petual stream of people - all the busy sounds of traffic, resound in it from morn to
midnight, but the streets around are mean and close poverty and debauchery lie
festering in the crowded alleyswant and misfortune are pent up in the narrow prison
an air of gloom and dreariness seems, ion my eyes at least, hang about the scene,
and to impart to it a squalid and sickly hure.
Many eyes, that have long since been closed in the grave, have looked around
upon that scene lightly enough, when entering the gate of the old Marshalsea Prison
for the first time for despair seldom comes with the first severe shock of misfortune. A
man has confidence in untried friends, he remembers the many offers of service so
freely made by his boon companions when he wanted them nothe has hope - the
hope of happy inexperience - and however he may bend beneath the first shock, it
springs up in his bosom, and flourishes there for a brief space, until it droops beneath
the blight of disappointment and neglect. How soon have those same eyes, deeply
sunken in the head, glared from fgces wasted with famine, and sallow from
confinement, in days when it 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 it left to give rise to occurences that make the
heart bleed.
