The Debtors’ Prison belonged chiefly to the great middle-class. Before them stalked always a grisly spectre, called by some Insolvency and by others Bankruptcy. This villainous ghost seized its victims by the collar and haled them within the walls of a Debtors’ Prison, where it made them abandon hope, and abide there till the day of death. Everybody is familiar with the inside of the Fleet, the Queen’s Bench, the Marshalsea, and Whitecross Street. They are all pulled down now, and the only way to get imprisoned for debt is to incur contempt of court, for which Holloway is the reward. But what a drop from the humours of the Queen’s Bench, with its drinking, tobacco, singing, and noisy revelry, to the solitary cell of Holloway Prison! The Debtors’ Prison is gone, and the world is the better for its departure. Nowadays the ruined betting-man, the rake, the sharper, the profligate, the fraudulent bankrupt, have no prison where they can carry on their old excesses again, though in humbler way. They go down--below the surface--out of sight, and what they do, and how they fare, nobody knows, and very few care. CHAPTER VII. IN SOCIETY. As to society in 1837, contemporary commentators differ. For, according to some, society was always gambling, running away with each other’s wives, causing and committing scandals, or whispering them, the men were spendthrifts and profligates, the women extravagant and heartless. Of course, the same things would be said, and are sometimes said, of the present day, and will be said in all following ages, because to the ultra-virtuous or to the satirist who trots out the old, stale, worn-out sham indignation, or to the isn’t-it-awful, gaping _gobemouche_, every generation seems worse than all those which preceded it. We know the tag and the burden and the weariness of the old song. As for myself, I am no indignant satirist, and the news that certain young gentlemen have been sitting up all night playing baccarat, drinking champagne, and ‘carrying on’ after the fashion of youth in all ages, does not greatly agitate my soul, or surprise me, or lash me into virtuous indignation. Not at all. At the same time, if one must range oneself and take a side, one may imitate the example of Benjamin Disraeli and declare for the side of the angels. And, once a declared follower of that army, one may be allowed to rejoice that things are vastly improved in the space of two generations. Of this there can be no doubt. Making easy allowance for exaggeration, and refusing to see depravity in a whole class because there are one or two cases that the world calls shocking and reads eagerly, it is quite certain that there is less of everything that should not be than there used to be--less in proportion, and even less in actual extent. The general tone, in short the general manners of society, have very much improved. Of this, I say again, there can be no doubt. Let any one, for