I think it was in the year 1877 or 1878 or thereabouts that I walked
over to see the Marshalsea before it was pulled down. I found a long
narrow terrace of mean houses--they are still standing: there was a
narrow courtyard in front for exercise and air: a high wall separated
the prison from the Churchyard: the rooms in the terrace were filled
with deep cupboards on either side of the fireplace: these cupboards
contained the coals, the cooking utensils, the stores, and the clothes
of the occupants. My guide, a working man employed on the demolition of
another part of the Prison, pointed to certain marks on the floor as, he
said, the place where they fastened the staples when they tied down the
poor prisoners. Such was his historic information: he also pointed out
Mr. Dorrit's room--so real was the novelist's creation. At the east end
of the terrace there were certain rooms which I believe to have been the
tap-room and the coffee-room. Then we came to the White Lyon, which at
the time I did not know to have been the White Lyon. It was a very
ancient building. It consisted of two rooms, one above the other: the
staircase and the floors were of most solid work: the windows were
barred: bars crossed the chimney a few feet up: large square nails were
driven into the oaken pillars and into the doors. The lower room had
evidently been kitchen, day room, sleeping room and all. Outside was a
tiny yard for exercise: this was the old Surrey Prison. I have seen
another prison exactly like it, and, if my memory does not play tricks,
it was at the little country town of Ilminster. This was a Clink, and on
this pattern, I believe, all the old Prisons were constructed. Beyond
the Clink was the chapel, a modern structure. So far as I know, Mr.
Dickens _père_, and Mr. Dorrit, were the only persons of eminence
confined in this modern Marshalsea. In the older Marshalsea all kinds of
distinguished people were kept captive, notably Bishop Bonner, who died
there. They say that it was necessary to bury him at midnight for fear
of the people, who would have rent his dead body in pieces if they
could. Perhaps. But it was not at any time usual for a mob of Englishmen
to pull a dead body, even of a martyr-making Marian Bishop, to pieces.
Later on, in the last century, it was the rule to bury at night. The
darkness, the flicker of the torches, increased the solemnity of the
ceremony. So that after all Bishop Bonner may have been buried at night
in the usual fashion. He lies buried somewhere in St. George's
Churchyard. It is now a pretty garden, whose benches in fine weather are
filled with people resting and sunning themselves: in spring the garden
is full of pleasant greenery: the dead parishioners to whom headstones
have been consecrated, if they ever visit the spot, may amuse themselves
by picking out their own tombstones among the illegible ones which line
the wall. But I hardly think, wherever they may now be quartered, they
would care to revisit this place.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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