Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870 -- Knowledge -- Prisons; Prisons; Prisons -- England -- London; Prisons in literature
"This wish was immediately gratified, for a policeman stepped forward
who had seen the prisoner attempt the pocket of an unknown gentleman
in the crowd, and indeed take a handkerchief therefrom, which, being a
very old one, he deliberately put back again, after trying it on his
own countenance. For this reason he took the Dodger into custody as
soon as he could get near him, and the said Dodger being searched, had
upon his person a silver snuff-box, with the owner's name engraved
upon the lid. This gentleman had been discovered upon reference to the
Court Guide, and being then and there present, swore that the
snuff-box was his, and that he had missed it on the previous day, the
moment he had disengaged himself from the crowd before referred to. He
had also remarked a young gentleman in the throng, particularly active
in making his way about, and that the young gentleman was the prisoner
before him.
"'Have you anything to ask this witness, boy?' said the magistrate.
"'I wouldn't abase myself by descending to hold no conversation with
him,' replied the Dodger.
"'Have you anything to say at all?'
"'Do you hear his worship ask if you've anything to say?' inquired the
gaoler, nudging the silent Dodger with his elbow.
"'I beg your pardon,' said the Dodger, looking up with an air of
abstraction.
"'Did you mean to say anything, you young shaver?'
"'No,' replied the Dodger, 'not here, for this ain't the shop for
justice; besides which, my attorney is a breakfasting this morning
with the Wice-President of the House of Commons; but I shall have
something to say elsewhere, and so will he, and so will a wery
numerous and 'spectable circle of acquaintances as'll make them beaks
wish they'd never been born, or that they'd got their footman to hang
'em up to their own hat-pegs afore they let 'em come out this morning
to try it upon me. I'll----'
"'There. He's fully committed,' interposed the clerk. 'Take him away.'
"'Oh, ah. I'll come on,' replied the Dodger, brushing his hat with the
palm of his hand. 'Ah (to the bench) it's no use your looking
frightened; I won't show you no mercy, not a ha'porth of it. You'll
pay for this, my fine fellers. I wouldn't be you for something; I
wouldn't go free now, if you was to fall down on your knees and ask
me. Here, carry me off to prison. Take me away.'
"With these last words, the Dodger suffered himself to be led off by
the collar, threatening, till he got into the yard, to make a
parliamentary business of it, and then grinning in the officer's face
with glee and self approval."
To such scholars as these, all the schools that could be crowded into
Newgate would be of no avail. Their biographies are summed up by
Magwitch, in "Great Expectations," who, blandly admitting to have been
brought up to be "a warmint," says:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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