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.”

CHAPTER II.
THE HOUSE OF DETENTION.

After a delay of about twenty minutes—when for the first time I found myself an inmate of a police cell—a very civil gaoler (with the relative rank of a Police Sergeant) announced to me, with a “Now, Captain,” the arrival of one of Her Majesty’s carriages.  One has frequently heard of the Queen’s carriages meeting, and not meeting, distinguished personages, such as Mr. Gladstone, Sir Garnet Wolseley, the King of the Zulus, and German princelings; but the carriage I refer to must not be confused with this type.  They are far from comfortable, the accommodation is limited, and the society questionable; and had it not been for the courteous consideration of the conductor (a Police Sergeant) I should have been considerably puzzled in attempting to squeeze my huge bulk of 19 stone 13 lbs. (as verified a few minutes later in Her Majesty’s scales) into a compartment about 16 inches in breadth.  As a fact, however, I remained in the passage, and thus obtained a view of streets and well-known haunts under very novel and degrading conditions.  Everyone appeared to stare at this van, and everyone seemed to me to particularly catch my eye; but this, of course, was pure fancy, resulting, I presume, from a guilty conscience—for within the dark tunnel of this centre passage it was impossible that anyone in the streets could see, much less distinguish, anyone inside.  I discovered a few weeks later that these uncomfortable police vans were infinitely superior and more roomy than those attached to Her Majesty’s prisons; in fact, I should say they were the only attempt (as far as I could discover) at making a distinction between an untried, and consequently innocent (vaunted English law—twaddle) person, and a convicted prisoner.

My experiences at the “House of Detention” and subsequently at “Newgate” convince me that justice demands a great alteration in the rules regarding untried prisoners, who are allowed and disallowed certain newspapers at the caprice of the chaplain, and actually restricted as to the class of eatables their friends may send them.  An instance of this occurred in my case.  A kind friend one day brought me a hamper containing, as I was informed, a roast fowl and a tongue; the warder at the entrance-gate, however, told him that these were luxuries in the estimation of the Home-office, and therefore less suited to the palate of an untried (and consequently innocent) man than a chop or steak fried in tallow and procured from the usual eating-house; and as my friend had dragged this white elephant of a parcel about with him for some time, he gave it bodily to the turnkey, who consequently reaped the advantage