IN WHICH MAY BE SEEN A FEW OF OUR COMMON EVILS.
Leaving for a time the scenes in the House of the Nine Nations, let us
return to Charleston, that we may see how matters appertaining to this
history are progressing. Mr. Snivel is a popular candidate for the
Senate of South Carolina; and having shot his man down in the street,
the question of his fighting abilities we regard as honorably settled.
Madame Montford, too, has by him been kept in a state of nervous
anxiety, for he has not yet found time to search in the “Poor-house for
the woman Munday.” All our very first, and best-known families, have
dropped Madame, who is become a wet sheet on the fashionable world. A
select committee of the St. Cecilia has twice considered her expulsion,
while numerous very respectable and equally active old ladies have been
shaking their scandal-bags at her head. Sins have been laid at her door
that would indeed damage a reputation with a fairer endorsement than
New York can give.
Our city at this moment is warmed into a singular state of excitement.
A Georgia editor (we regard editors as belonging to a very windy class
of men), not having the mightiness of our chivalry before him, said the
Union would have peace if South Carolina were shut up in a
penitentiary. And for this we have invited the indiscreet gentleman to
step over the border, that we may hang him, being extremely fond of
such common-place amusements. What the facetious fellow meant was, that
our own State would enjoy peace and prosperity were our mob-politicians
all in the penitentiary. And with this sensible opinion we heartily
agree.
We regard our state of civilization as extremely enviable. To-day we
made a lion of the notorious Hines, the forger. Hines, fashioning after
our hapless chivalry, boasts that South Carolina is his State-his
political mother. He has, nevertheless, graced with his presence no few
penitentiaries. We feasted him in that same prison where we degrade and
starve the honest poor; we knew him guilty of an henious crime-yet we
carried him jubilantly to the “halls of justice.” And while
distinguished lawyers tendered their services to the “clever villain,”
you might have witnessed in sorrow a mock trial, and heard a mob
sanction with its acclamations his release.
Oh, truth and justice! how feeble is thy existence where the god
slavery reigns. And while men are heard sounding the praises of this
highwayman at the street corners, extolling men who have shot down
their fellow-men in the streets, and calling those “Hon. gentlemen,”
who have in the most cowardly manner assassinated their opponents, let
us turn to a different picture. Two genteely-dressed men are seen
entering the old jail. “I have twice promised them a happy surprise,”
says one, whose pale, studious features, wear an expression of
gentleness. The face of the other is somewhat florid, but beaming with
warmth of heart. They enter, having passed up one of the long halls, a
room looking into the prison-yard. Several weary-faced prisoners are
seated round a deal table, playing cards; among them is the old sailor
described in the early part of this history. “You don’t know my friend,
here?” says the young man of the studious face, addressing the
prisoners, and pointing to his companion. The prisoners look
inquiringly at the stranger, then shake their heads in response.
“No, you don’t know me: you never knew me when I was a man,” speaks the
stranger, raising his hat, as a smile lights up his features. “You
don’t know Tom Swiggs, the miserable inebriate—”
A spontaneaus shout of recognition, echoing and re-echoing through the
old halls, interrupts this declaration. One by one the imprisoned men
grasp him by the hand, and shower upon him the warmest, the heartiest
congratulations. A once fallen brother has risen to a knowledge of his
own happiness. Hands that raised him from that mat of straw, when the
mental man seemed lost, now welcome him restored, a purer being.
“Ah, Spunyarn,” says Tom, greeting the old sailor with child-like
fondness, as the tears are seen gushing into the eyes, and coursing
down the browned face of the old mariner, “I owe you a debt I fear I
never can pay. I have thought of you in my absence, and had hoped on my
return to see you released. I am sorry you are not—”
“Well, as to that,” interrupts the old sailor, his face resuming its
wonted calm, “I can’t-you know I can’t, Tom,—sail without a clearance.
I sometimes think I’m never going to get one. Two years, as you know,
I’ve been here, now backing and then filling, in and out, just as it
suits that chap with the face like a snatch-block. They call him a
justice. ’Pon my soul, Tom, I begin to think justice for us poor folks
is got aground. Well, give us your hand agin’ (he seizes Tom by the
hand); its all well wi’ you, anyhows.’
“Yes, thank God,” says Tom, returning his friendly shake, “I have
conquered the enemy, and my thanks for it are due to those who reached
my heart with kind words, and gave me a brother’s hand. I was not dead
to my own degradation; but imprisonment left me no hope. The sting of
disappointment may pain your feelings; hope deferred may torture you
here in a prison; the persecutions of enemies may madden your very
soul; but when a mother turns coldly from you—No, I will not say it,
for I love her still—” he hesitates, as the old sailor says, with
touching simplicity, he never knew what it was to have a mother or
father. Having spread before the old man and his companions sundry
refreshments he had ordered brought in, and received in return their
thanks, he inquires of Spunyarn how it happened that he got into
prison, and how it is that he remains here a fixture.
“I’ll tell you, Tom,” says the old sailor, commencing his story. “We’d
just come ashore-had a rough passage-and, says I to myself, here’s lay
up ashore awhile. So I gets a crimp, who takes me to a crib. ‘It’s all
right here-you’ll have snug quarters, Jack,’ says he, introducing me to
the chap who kept it. I gives him twenty dollars on stack, and gets up
my chest and hammock, thinking it was all fair and square. Then I meets
an old shipmate, who I took in tow, he being hard ashore for cash. ‘Let
us top the meetin’ with a glass,’ says I. ‘Agreed,’ says Bill, and I
calls her on, the very best. ‘Ten cents a glass,’ says the fellow
behind the counter, giving us stuff that burnt as it went. ‘Mister,’
says I, ‘do ye want to poison a sailor?’ ‘If you no like him,’ says he,
‘go get better somewhere else.’ I told him to give me back the twenty,
and me dunnage.
“‘You don’t get him-clear out of mine ’ouse,’ says he,
“‘Under the peak,’ says I, fetching him a but under the lug that
beached him among his beer-barrels. He picked himself up, and began
talking about a magistrate. And knowing what sort of navigation a
fellow’d have in the hands of that sort of land-craft, I began to think
about laying my course for another port. ‘Hold on here,’ says a
big-sided land-lubber, seizing me by the fore-sheets. ‘Cast off there,’
says I, ‘or I’ll put ye on yer beam-ends.’
“‘I’m a constable,’ says he, pulling out a pair of irons he said must
go on my hands.”
“I hope he did not put them on,” interrupts the young theologian, for
it is he who accompanies Tom.
“Avast! I’ll come to that. He said he’d only charge me five dollars for
going to jail without ’em, so rather than have me calling damaged, I
giv him it. It was only a trifle. ‘Now, Jack,’ says the fellow, as we
went along, in a friendly sort of way, ‘just let us pop in and see the
justice. I think a ten ’ll get ye a clearance.’ ‘No objection to that,’
says I, and in we went, and there sat the justice, face as long and
sharp as a marlinspike, in a dirty old hole, that looked like our
forecastle. ‘Bad affair this, Jack,’ says he, looking up over his
spectacles. ‘You must be locked up for a year and a day, Jack.’
“‘You’ll give a sailor a hearin’, won’t ye?’ says I. ‘As to that,—well,
I don’t know, Jack; you musn’t break the laws of South Carolina when
you get ashore. You seem like a desirable sailor, and can no doubt get
a ship and good wages-this is a bad affair. However, as I’m not
inclined to be hard, if you are disposed to pay twenty dollars, you can
go.’ ‘Law and justice,’ says I, shaking my fist at him-‘do ye take this
salt-water citizen for a fool?’
“‘Take him away, Mr. Stubble-lock him up!—lock him up!’ says the
justice, and here I am, locked up, hard up, hoping. I’d been tied up
about three weeks when the justice looked in one day, and after
inquiring for me, and saying, ‘good morning, Jack,’ and seeming a
little by the head: ‘about this affair of yourn, Jack,’ says he, ‘now,
if you’ll mind your eye when you get out—my trouble’s worth ten
dollars-and pay me, I’ll discharge you, and charge the costs to the
State.’
“‘Charge the cost to the State!’ says I. ‘Do you take Spunyarn for a
marine?’ At this he hauled his wind, and stood out.”
“You have had a hearing before the Grand Jury, have you not?” inquires
Tom, evincing a deep interest in the story of his old friend.
“Not I. This South Carolina justice is a hard old craft to sail in. The
Grand Jury only looks in once every six months, and then looks out
again, without inquiring who’s here. And just before the time it comes
round, I’m shuffled out, and just after it has left, I’m shuffled in
again-fees charged to the State! That’s it. So here I am, a fee-making
machine, bobbing in and out of jail to suit the conveniences of Mister
Justice. I don’t say this with any ill will-I don’t.” Having concluded
his story, the old sailor follows his visitors to the prison gate,
takes an affectionate leave of Tom Swiggs, and returns to join his
companions. On the following day, Tom intercedes with Mr. Snivel, for
it is he who thus harvests fees of the State by retaining the old
sailor in prison, and procures his release. And here, in Mr. Snivel,
you have an instrument of that debased magistracy which triumphs over
the weak, that sits in ignorance and indolence, that invests the
hypocritical designer with a power almost absolute, that keeps justice
muzzled on her throne-the natural offspring of that demon-making
institution that scruples not to brunt the intellect of millions, while
dragging a pall of sloth over the land.