In answer to that piece of paper, I presented myself at the proper place
in due course and with a certain trepidation. What was it that I was
about to do? For I had no experience of these things. And, being too
early, I walked a little to and fro, looking at all those my partners in
this matter of the purification of Society. Prosecutors, witnesses,
officials, policemen, detectives, undetected, pressmen, barristers,
loafers, clerks, cadgers, jurymen. And I remember having something of
the feeling that one has when one looks into a sink without holding one's
nose. There was such uneasy hurry, so strange a disenchanted look, a
sort of spiritual dirt, about all that place, and there were--faces! And
I thought: To them my face must seem as their faces seem to me!
Soon I was taken with my accomplices to have my name called, and to be
sworn. I do not remember much about that process, too occupied with
wondering what these companions of mine were like; but presently we all
came to a long room with a long table, where nineteen lists of
indictments and nineteen pieces of blotting paper were set alongside
nineteen pens. We did not, I recollect, speak much to one another, but
sat down, and studied those nineteen lists. We had eighty-seven cases on
which to pronounce whether the bill was true or no; and the clerk assured
us we should get through them in two days at most. Over the top of these
indictments I regarded my eighteen fellows. There was in me a hunger of
inquiry, as to what they thought about this business; and a sort of
sorrowful affection for them, as if we were all a ship's company bound on
some strange and awkward expedition. I wondered, till I thought my
wonder must be coming through my eyes, whether they had the same curious
sensation that I was feeling, of doing something illegitimate, which I
had not been born to do, together with a sense of self-importance, a sort
of unholy interest in thus dealing with the lives of my fellow men. And
slowly, watching them, I came to the conclusion that I need not wonder.
All with the exception perhaps of two, a painter and a Jew looked such
good citizens. I became gradually sure that they were not troubled with
the lap and wash of speculation; unclogged by any devastating sense of
unity; pure of doubt, and undefiled by an uneasy conscience.
But now they began to bring us in the evidence. They brought it quickly.
And at first we looked at it, whatever it was, with a sort of solemn
excitement. Were we not arbiters of men's fates, purifiers of Society,
more important by far than Judge or Common Jury? For if we did not bring
in a true bill there was an end; the accused would be discharged.
We set to work, slowly at first, then faster and still faster, bringing
in true bills; and after every one making a mark in our lists so that we
might know where we were. We brought in true bills for burglary, and
false pretences, larceny, and fraud; we brought them in for manslaughter,
rape, and arson. When we had ten or so, two of us would get up and bear
them away down to the Court below and lay them before the Judge. "Thank
you, gentlemen!" he would say, or words to that effect; and we would go
up again, and go on bringing in true bills. I noticed that at the
evidence of each fresh bill we looked with a little less excitement, and
a little less solemnity, making every time a shorter tick and a shorter
note in the margin of our lists. All the bills we had--fifty-seven--we
brought in true. And the morning and the afternoon made that day, till we
rested and went to our homes.
Next day we were all back in our places at the appointed hour, and, not
greeting each other much, at once began to bring in bills. We brought
them in, not quite so fast, as though some lurking megrim, some microbe
of dissatisfaction with ourselves was at work within us. It was as if we
wanted to throw one out, as if we felt our work too perfect. And
presently it came. A case of defrauding one Sophie Liebermann, or
Laubermann, or some such foreign name, by giving her one of those
five-pound Christmas-card banknotes just then in fashion, and receiving
from her, as she alleged, three real sovereigns change. There was a
certain piquancy about the matter, and I well remember noticing how we
sat a little forward and turned in our seats when they brought in the
prosecutrix to give evidence. Pale, self-possessed, dressed in black, and
rather comely, neither brazen nor furtive, speaking but poor English, her
broad, matter-of-fact face, with its wide-set grey eyes and thickish nose
and lips, made on me, I recollect, an impression of rather stupid
honesty. I do not think they had told us in so many words what her
calling was, nor do I remember whether she actually disclosed it, but by
our demeanour I could tell that we had all realized what was the nature
of the service rendered to the accused, in return for which he had given
her this worthless note. In her rather guttural but pleasant voice she
answered all our questions--not very far from tears, I think, but saved
by native stolidity, and perhaps a little by the fear that purifiers of
Society might not be the proper audience for emotion. When she had left
us we recalled the detective, and still, as it were, touching the
delicate matter with the tips of our tongues, so as not, being men of the
world, to seem biassed against anything, we definitely elicited from him
her profession and these words: "If she's speaking the truth, gentlemen;
but, as you know, these women, they don't always, specially the foreign
ones!" When he, too, had gone, we looked at each other in unwonted
silence. None of us quite liked, it seemed, to be first to speak. Then
our foreman said: "There's no doubt, I think, that he gave her the
note--mean trick, of course, but we can't have him on that alone--bit too
irregular--no consideration in law, I take it."
He smiled a little at our smiles, and then went on: "The question,
gentlemen, really seems to be, are we to take her word that she actually
gave him change?" Again, for quite half a minute; we were silent, and
then, the fattest one of us said, suddenly: "Very dangerous--goin' on the
word of these women."
And at once, as if he had released something in our souls, we all (save
two or three) broke out. It wouldn't do! It wasn't safe! Seeing what
these women were! It was exactly as if, without word said, we had each
been swearing the other to some secret compact to protect Society. As if
we had been whispering to each other something like this: "These
women--of course, we need them, but for all that we can't possibly
recognise them as within the Law; we can't do that without endangering
the safety of every one of us. In this matter we are trustees for all
men--indeed, even for ourselves, for who knows at what moment we might
not ourselves require their services, and it would be exceedingly awkward
if their word were considered the equal of our own!" Not one of us,
certainly said anything so crude as this; none the less did many of us
feel it. Then the foreman, looking slowly round the table, said: "Well,
gentlemen, I think we are all agreed to throw out this bill"; and all,
except the painter, the Jew, and one other, murmured: "Yes." And, as
though, in throwing out this bill we had cast some trouble off our minds,
we went on with the greater speed, bringing in true bills. About two
o'clock we finished, and trooped down to the Court to be released. On
the stairway the Jew came close, and, having examined me a little sharply
with his velvety slits of eyes, as if to see that he was not making a
mistake, said: "Ith fonny--we bring in eighty thix bills true, and one we
throw out, and the one we throw out we know it to be true, and the
dirtieth job of the whole lot. Ith fonny!" "Yes," I answered him, "our
sense of respectability does seem excessive." But just then we reached
the Court, where, in his red robe and grey wig, with his clear-cut,
handsome face, the judge seemed to shine and radiate, like sun through
gloom. "I thank you, gentlemen," he said, in a voice courteous and a
little mocking, as though he had somewhere seen us before: "I thank you
for the way in which you have performed your duties. I have not the
pleasure of assigning to you anything for your services except the
privilege of going over a prison, where you will be able to see what sort
of existence awaits many of those to whose cases you have devoted so much
of your valuable time. You are released, gentlemen."
Looking at each, other a little hurriedly, and not taking too much
farewell, for fear of having to meet again, we separated.
I was, then, free--free of the injunction of that piece of paper reposing
in my pocket. Yet its influence was still upon me. I did not hurry
away, but lingered in the courts, fascinated by the notion that the fate
of each prisoner had first passed through my hands. At last I made an
effort, and went out into the corridor. There I passed a woman whose
figure seemed familiar. She was sitting with her hands in her lap
looking straight before her, pale-faced and not uncomely, with thickish
mouth and nose--the woman whose bill we had thrown out. Why was she
sitting there? Had she not then realised that we had quashed her claim;
or was she, like myself, kept here by mere attraction of the Law?
Following I know not what impulse, I said: "Your case was dismissed,
wasn't it?" She looked up at me stolidly, and a tear, which had
evidently been long gathering, dropped at the movement. "I do nod know;
I waid to see," she said in her thick voice; "I tink there has been
mistake." My face, no doubt, betrayed something of my sentiments about
her case, for the thick tears began rolling fast down her pasty cheeks,
and her pent-up feeling suddenly flowed forth in words: "I work 'ard;
Gott! how I work hard! And there gomes dis liddle beastly man, and rob
me. And they say: 'Ah! yes; but you are a bad woman, we don' trust
you--you speak lie.' But I speak druth, I am nod a bad woman--I gome
from Hamburg." "Yes, yes," I murmured; "yes, yes." "I do not know this
country well, sir. I speak bad English. Is that why they do not drust
my word?" She was silent for a moment, searching my face, then broke out
again: "It is all 'ard work in my profession, I make very liddle, I
cannot afford to be rob. Without the men I cannod make my living, I must
drust them--and they rob me like this, it is too 'ard." And the slow
tears rolled faster and faster from her eyes on to her hands and her
black lap. Then quietly, and looking for a moment singularly like a big,
unhappy child, she asked: "Will you blease dell me, sir, why they will
not give me the law of that dirty little man?"