The Dyers Hand and Other Essays

An old gentleman that I worked for, down in the coun­try, and died well off, left five thousand pounds behind him, one of which he left to me, 'cause I'd married a humble relation of his. And being surrounded by a great number of nieces and nephews, as well always quarrel­ling and fighting among themselves for the property, he makes me his executor to divide the rest among 'em as the will provided, and I paid all the legacies. I'd hardly done it when one nevy brings an action to set the will aside. The case comes on, some months afterwards, afore a deaf old gentleman in a back room somewhere down by Paul's Churchyard . . . and arter four counsels had taken a day a piece to both him regularly, he takes a week or two to consider and then gives his judgment that the testator was not quite right in the head, and I must pay all the money back again, and all the costs. I appealed; the case comes on before three or four very sleepy gentle­men, who had heard it all before in the other court and they very dutifully confirmed the decision of the old gendeman below. After that we went into Chancery, where we are still. My lawyers have had all my thousand pounds long ago; and what between the estate as they call it and the costs, I'm here for ten thousand, and shall stop here till I die, mending shoes.

Yet, in the eyes of the Law, all three classes are equally guilty. This does not mean, however, that all debtors receive the same treatment.

The three chums informed Mr. Pickwick in a breath that money was in the Fleet, just what money was out of it; that it would instantly procure him almost anything he desired; and that, supposing he had it, and had no objection to spend it, if he only signified his wish to have a room to himself, he might take possession of one, fur­nished and fitted to boot, in half an hour's time.

The lot of the penniless debtor, like the Chancery Prisoner, was, in Dickens' time, atrocious, far worse than that of the convicted criminal, for the convict was fed gratis by the State but the debtor was not, so that, if penniless, he must subsist on the charity of his fellow prisoners or die of starvation. On the other hand, for those with a little money and no sense of shame, the Fleet Prison could seem a kind of Eden.

There were many classes of people here, from the labor­ing man in his fustian jacket, to the broken down spend­thrift in his shawl dressing-gown, most appropriately out at elbows; but there was the same air about them all—a listless jail-bird careless swagger, a vagabondish who's afraid sort of bearing which is indescribable in words . . . "It strikes me, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, "that imprison­ment for debt is scarcely any punishment at all." "Think not, sir?," inquired Mr. Weller. "You see how these fellows drink and smoke and roar," replied Mr. Pickwick, It's quite impossible that they can mind it much." "Ah, that's just the very thing sir," rejoined Sam, "they don't mind it; it's a regular holiday to them—all porter and skitdes. It is t'other wuns as gets down over, with this sort of thing: them down-hearted fellers as can't swig away at the beer, nor play at skitdes neither: them as would pay as they could, and get's low by being boxed up. I'll tell you wot it is, sir; them as is always a idlin' in public houses it don't damage at all, and them as is always a working wen they can, it damages too much."

His encounter with the world of the Fleet is the end of Mr. Pickwick's innocence. When he started out on his adventures, he believed the world to be inhabited only by the well-mean­ing, the honest and the entertaining; presenuy he discovered that it also contains malevolent, dishonest and boring inhabit­ants, but it is only after entering the Fleet that he realizes it contains persons who suffer, and that the division between those who are suffering and those who are not is more signifi­cant than the division between the just and the unjust, the innocent and the guilty. He himself, for instance, has been unjusdy convicted, but he is in prison by his own choice and, though he does not enjoy the Fleet as much as Dingley Dell, by the standards of comfort within the Fleet, he enjoys the advantages of a king, not because he is morally innocent while Jingle and Trotter are morally guilty, but because he happens to be the richest inmate while they are among the poorest. Then Mrs. Bardell, who through stupidity rather than malice is responsible for the injustice done to him, becomes a fellow prisoner. Mr. Pickwick is compelled to realize that he, too, is a debtor, because he has been more fortunate than most people, and that he must discharge his debt by forgiving his enemies and relieving their suffering. In order to do his duty, he has to do in fact what he had been falsely accused of doing, commit a breach of promise by breaking his vow and putting money into the pockets of Dodson and Fogg; for the sake of charity, he has to sacrifice his honor.