During my career as a gardener I became very unwell. I attribute this in a measure to a recurrence of a malady contracted in the tropics, and a chill I caught from lying on damp grass in a draughty yard. Another cause of my serious and probably life-long illness may possibly be traced to an insane and spontaneous act—an over-taxation of nature—many months previously. I had fined down in the ordinary course of events to the weight and bulk (according to my theory) that nature clearly intended; but not content with this satisfactory result, I determined to attain still slimmer proportions. Many indications convinced me I had found “my bearings,” and common sense ought to have suggested, enough; but vanity prevailed, and perseverance attained the further desired reduction, though at a more serious price than I had contemplated. My theory on the reduction of fat is based on my own case, and had I stopped as I recommend others, when I had found “my bearings,” I should have retained my usual health; as it was I went on and on, and like those enthusiasts who sacrifice health and life to the perfecting of a principle, so I, regardless of my own convictions, acted in direct opposition to my advice to others, and may be congratulated on having probed a theory to the very bottom at considerable personal sacrifice. If any sceptic is disposed to disparage my system, I ask him to blame me and not it. The latter consists of a dietary in itself harmless, and certain to produce diminution. When a certain point is attained it says STOP; and if it is asked why, I reply because beyond that point it is rash, and if persisted in, the theory is clearly not to blame. I am aware that many will seize the opportunity to disparage the system, and endeavour to deter others from following it. Such a course would be as logical as to condemn a glass of sherry, because someone had died from delirium tremens; or to abstain from eels because Henry I. had died from a surfeit of lampreys; or, to carry the absurdity a degree further, to avoid (like the old woman) apple-tart, because her husband had died of apple-plexy. It was in the spring that I commenced my campaign against nature, and though I had ample proof that I had arrived at my “natural bearings,” I determined (never dreaming of the danger) to persevere a little more. I was then about 15 stone in weight, and knowing it was a stone in excess of the average for men of my build, I thought if I could reduce just one stone more I would rest satisfied. I found, however, that my ordinary daily diet of mutton broth, a chop, potatoes, bread, and cocoa failed to reduce me as it had hitherto done, and that, try as I would, I recorded the same weight a fortnight hence. The remedy that most naturally suggested itself was to reduce the quantity, and I proceeded to divest my consumption, of the broth, the fat from the chops, and a portion of the potatoes and cocoa; but nature still continued to warn me, and I as persistently ignored her, and, losing all patience, I entered on a course little short of starvation. I took a solemn oath that I would for one week confine myself to six ounces of bread and six mouthfuls of water a day (six ounces of bread will be found to be synonymous to six mouthfuls, and no more). During the first 48 hours my appetite became ravenous, and on the third and fourth days the pains of hell did indeed get hold of me; and it was as much as I could do to resist the temptation of taking one mouthful of the savoury broth and mutton that was lying untouched on my table. The trial now became almost more than I could bear, and more than once I approached the table, where the food would have to remain for an hour, but at the last moment drew back. So acute, indeed, did I find this agony that, to avoid temptation and to put it out of my power, I used to throw the food into the slop-pail. After a few days, the cravings of appetite began to cease, and I congratulated myself that I was getting accustomed to it. An accidental circumstance also prevented my testing the result at the end of the seven days, and I continued in my madness for another week. On being weighed I then found I had lost nine or ten pounds. My appetite meanwhile had entirely forsaken me; the smell and even the sight of meat produced nausea, my eyes seemed to be affected, my head began to swim, I became giddy without cause. I was now really ill, and I endeavoured to remedy the evil, but my stomach refused nourishment, and if I ate I was immediately sick. The possibility of having fatally injured myself so alarmed me that I saw the surgeon, who prescribed tonics and a change of diet; and, as all failed in restoring outraged nature, I was admitted into hospital. During this time Dr. Tanner and his starvation exhibition were constantly in my mind, and the man I had once associated with the performance of a wonderful feat of self-denial descended in my mind to the level of a poor sick man like myself, absolutely incapable of taking food. Starvation has an ugly sound, and in its first stages is unquestionably painful; but in a very few days (three or four at the most) the sensation passes away, and is succeeded by an absolute aversion to food. When I have seen a half-starved man in the streets who has told me he has not tasted food for a week and was “so ’ungry,” my bowels of compassion have always been moved. If any mendicant was to tell me so now, I should know he was lying and refuse to assist him; but if he said he had not eaten for two days and was in agony, I should pity him and give him sixpence if I had it. I shall give a detailed account of my life in hospital, and the incredible kindness and consideration I received, later on. Meanwhile I will confine myself to the assertion, that to such an extent had I injured myself that in six weeks I had lost two stone. On one’s admission into hospital one is at once put to bed, and one’s clothes removed. This latter custom is intended to insure a proper compliance with the regulation, until the doctor’s sanction is obtained to the contrary. “Sitting up” has, however, been found to be half way to “going down”; and, as hospital is the goal to which all prisoners aspire, it does not require much inducement to commend their observance of this particular rule. The hospital consists of a large airy ward, fitted up with twenty beds. Through this, and communicating with a glass door, is a smaller room with three large windows, which gave a clear view of the outer world from Holborn Town Hall to St. Pancras Station. It was my good fortune to be located here, detached and alone, and yet sufficiently near to see and hear all that was going on. The menial duties of the hospital are performed by three prisoners selected for good behaviour. These billets are specially prized, and though associated with the most unpleasant duties, offer facilities for eating and drinking which, in the estimation of prisoners, cover a multitude of drawbacks. These cleaners eat up everything; indeed, so fat do they often become that it is a kind of unwritten rule that when they have increased a stone in weight they revert to prison life. The voracity they display is incredible, and until they become too dainty to care for anything but the best, they may daily be seen finishing eggs, tea, mutton, milk, beef tea, pudding, and arrowroot promiscuously, as they pass from patient to patient. The opportunity for this gluttony is unlimited, and a glance at the fare I subsisted on for over five months will convince the most sceptical that kindness and liberality can exist even in a prison; indeed, I attribute my being alive now to the tender care and medical skill I received, and can never adequately express my gratitude to the surgeons and the entire hospital staff.My dietary consisted of—

(I was offered, when I wished it, to substitute a chop, fish, chicken, rabbit, or anything I might fancy.)

Every item was the best that money could procure, and unlimited in the supply, nor could I have lived better at a West-End hotel at thirty shillings a day; but my health precluded my enjoying it, and I could not summon the appetite for one-tenth of the dainties. Everything I left was devoured by the cleaners, and I have seen these cormorants gorging as if determined to burst rather than waste a scrap. Mine was by no means an isolated case, for every one was equally cared for, and it seemed as if a man had only to be really ill to be made to forget that he had fallen amongst thieves, and was now under the care of the good Samaritan. Sick men are proverbially impressionable; but now, months after, in a genial climate, surrounded by every comfort that a kind mother can think of, and gradually regaining my strength, I cannot look back on the past without feelings amounting almost to veneration, as I remember the kind friend and skilful hand that saved me from the jaws of death. The hospital is unquestionably the best managed of the various departments in Coldbath. I attribute this to the excellent staff of experienced warders, and the supervision of the medical officers. Where all seem actuated by the same desire, it would be invidious to draw comparisons; but the authorities little know what hard-working, efficient, and trustworthy men they have in their two night-warders, who week by week relieve each other, and perform their multifarious duties through the livelong night in a quiet, unostentatious way, and all for a pittance of an extra shilling a night beyond that paid to an ordinary turnkey. The many sleepless nights I passed gave me ample time to study their habits, which never varied, nor seemed regulated by eye-service; and from 6 in the evening, when they appeared neatly attired in white jacket and apron, till 6 in the morning, these living automatons neither slumbered nor slept, but were engaged, without intermission, in dispensing medicines, preparing plasters and poultices, and keeping up the fires, without fuss or noise, and with the regularity of a chronometer. At first my utter prostration prevented me leaving my bed, but as time wore on, I began to get about and observe what was going on. The day was a long and dreary one, though it was optional when one got up, nor could it be divested of the many annoyances that officialism—spiritual and temporal—seemed unable to forego even in a hospital. The chief culprit was the Scripture reader (as I understood was his official designation, though I never saw or heard him so engaged), who appeared regularly at 2 o’clock, and read a monotonous harangue, with a religious tendency evidently intended to be entertaining. I should be sorry to misjudge the worthy man, whom I am disposed rather to sympathize with, as the passive instrument of an irreverent exhibition; indeed, he conveyed to me the notion of a man actuated by a strong desire to fulfil a duty conscientiously which he felt was contemptible, and that deceived neither himself nor his audience. This farce and its surroundings were all sprinkled with the same reverential ceremony, and as he strutted up the passage with his billycock under his arm, a subdued tone pervaded the room and heads were uncovered as became the solemn farce. “The subject for our study and meditation,” began the unhappy man, “is entitled, ‘Jonas, or the bilious whale,’ or, ‘Cain, the naughty man,’” as the case might be; and then followed twenty minutes of twaddle, senseless and monotonous, and as incapable of removing moral stains as would be “Thorley’s Food for Cattle,” if substituted in things temporal (and seedy) for “Benzine Collas.” A fervent “Amen” always followed these effusions, loudly joined in by the cleaners, who felt it might be considered a recommendation for continued hospital employment, and those patients approaching convalescence, who hoped it might turn the scale in favour of a few more days in hospital. By opening the door I could see and hear everything, and I often caught poor “Bubbling Bill” casting sheep’s eyes in my direction. Meals were always preceded by a grace (?) said by a turnkey: “Bless O lor’ th’ things touruse for crysake, Amen!” a refreshing and commendable adjunct.

It seems peculiarly unfair on religion that it should so often be presented in a hideous or ridiculous light, and if the same stipulations were enforced as to quality as at present exist as to quantity, more things than time might possibly be saved.

At 11, and again at night, the surgeons visited the hospital, when every case was carefully gone into. The care that prisoners receive in this hospital puts crime almost at a premium, and though I may indirectly be accusing those eminent and otherwise irreproachable physicians of unintentionally aiding and abetting law-breaking, veracity compels me to say what I think. A case I met goes far to prove it. In the hospital with me was a broken-down old gardener who had seen better days, and was in receipt of a pension of five shillings a week from a former employer. This pittance, however conclusive it might be of his comparative honesty, was wholly inadequate to procure medical comforts for rheumatic gout, to which he was a martyr. He next appears at a police court for having a pig in his yard, which he had driven in from the street, and then informed the police. There can be only one solution of this act, for he was a man of sixty, beyond absolute want, and had never seen the inside of a prison before. He had now attained his object, and was undergoing three months’ imprisonment, during all which time he was in hospital. I saw him on admission, a cripple, crumpled up and half-starved, and I saw him every day swaddled in cotton wool, his limbs frequently fomented, and fed on the daintiest luxuries. This man was one of the few I met who was grateful for the care bestowed on him, and honest enough to wish he had had six instead of three months’ imprisonment. I saw him on the day of his discharge, comparatively cured, and wondered how long it would be before he again caught the right sow by the ear. A disadvantage that patients have to suffer from is the architectural construction of the ward: it unites the two angles of the prison, and necessitates its being traversed in its entire length by every official going his rounds. On these occasions great inconsideration is shown, the orange-peel delinquent of chapel notoriety being peculiarly offensive in the unnecessary noise he made. I heard him on one occasion complain to the warder, that a patient, who was almost in extremis at the time, was “too lazy to look up.”

During my retirement I saw more than one painful death-scene; the one that made the most unpleasant impression on me was that of a living skeleton, who seemed incapable of dying, although too weak to do anything but blaspheme dreadfully, and keep up one incessant groan. He was a man of sixty, and had been in his time the best known and expertest of swell-mobsmen. He had not a relation in the world, and although offered his discharge months before, had nowhere or no one to whom he could go. I saw this man dying for weeks, and eventually stood at his bedside when he took his last gasp. This man had been either a convict or undergoing imprisonment for the last twenty years, and the crime that led to his death in Coldbath was the sacrilege of putting a counterfeit half-crown into a collection plate, and taking out as change a genuine florin. One of the cleaners—an unmitigated thief, but sufficiently good to have qualified for staff employ—had told the warder the day before his death that he knew him to be acquainted with certain persons he named; and with the consideration that characterizes the treatment of prisoners in hospital, no pains were spared to discover the creatures. I saw them next day (two females, known to every policeman in London, the one as the keeper of a thieves’ lodging-house, the other as a “decoy”), actuated by no motive but curiosity and the intimation they had received, standing at the dying man’s bed in their tawdry finery, in company with the priest as attired in chasuble and stole he pronounced the extreme unction for dying sinners. The dying man, the kindly priest, the tawdry females, and the surroundings, formed a picture truly awful, and baffling description. But the end had not yet come; and as the room was again left to its normal condition, banter reassumed its sway, and bets began to be made as to the probable hour of his death. Pots of tea and bread-and-butter were freely wagered, and yet through the livelong night the dying groans, getting feebler and feebler, told how the swell-mobsman was still tussling with death. At five in the morning the end was evidently at hand, and slipping on my clothes, I joined the knot of men attracted to the bedside. The man was happily unconscious; and as the excitement of the sweepstake increased, I can only compare it to the game of roulette, when the ball almost rolls into one compartment and then topples into the next; and “He’s dead now,” “No, he isn’t,” “That’s his last,” followed gasp after gasp, till at a few minutes to six a profound silence announced that the swell-mobsman was gone. (It is only fair to state that much of this occurred unknown to the solitary warder, for what was one amongst so many?) By this time the prison bell was ringing, and the place was astir as day and night warders relieved one another. To stretch, strip, and carry him out of bed were the work of a moment; and what had been a living man a few seconds before had been washed, laid out, rolled in a blanket, and carried to the dead-house in less time than I have taken to write it.

The washing and laying out of a corpse is too dreadful to pass unnoticed. This necessary but revolting ceremony is performed in the kitchen. I saw the corpse divested of all clothing, lying on the top of the bath, in the centre of the kitchen, with the kettle boiling within a yard of it, and surrounded by pots and pans and other paraphernalia in daily use. The stench that pervaded the kitchen after this ceremony was so apparent (nor could it be got rid of for days) that I was absolutely unable to eat anything that had passed through it, and for days subsisted on the insides of loaves and eggs, as the only places where the flavour of potted pickpocket did not appear to have penetrated. This washing of corpses and the “itch bath” in a hospital kitchen is as great a scandal as ever was perpetrated by any Government.

The dead-house is a primitive establishment, and cannot even be divested of superfluous officialism. Its entire contents consist of a slab and a wooden block for the head of the corpse, and yet it boasted of an inventory board. This latter absurdity is conspicuously displayed, and reads—

“ONE TABLE.”

“ONE BLOCK.”

Another death I saw was even more awful in its suddenness. It was during dinner when some five or six patients were devouring their chops. One man, that was conspicuous for his habitual voracity, had left the table whilst waiting for the pudding. As he passed his bed he toppled over and was dead. The cook, with the characteristic officiousness of the criminal class, rushed out of the kitchen with a saucepan full of rice pudding in his hand, and began to assist at the ghastly manipulation. I was within a foot of him, and saw the wretch brush off a tear from the dead man’s eye, which he then proceeded to close; he then resumed his culinary duties, and gave the saucepan a stir. Rice pudding, I understand, is liable to “stick” to the pot; for my part, I made a vow to “stick” to dry bread; indeed, I never see one now without being reminded of this disgusting scene.

I was now beginning to yearn for tobacco. For some days past my illness had indisposed me for it; besides, my arrangements had been upset by my sudden admission into hospital. To communicate with one of my agents, although by no means difficult, was a question of opportunity. I was particularly anxious, too, not to be suspected of breaking a rule, for though it could only have been interpreted as a breach of discipline to be dealt with by the Executive, I found it difficult to divest myself of the notion it would appear ungracious towards my kind physicians if I transgressed any rule whilst in hospital. But my craving increased, and as I could not eat, and to smoke I was afraid, and consoling myself with the assurance that what the eye does not see, the heart does not feel, I decided, in the burning words of Bishop Heber, to “mind my eye and blaze away.”

My position necessitated my breaking a fundamental rule of my principle, and I confided in a rascally cleaner. I had, indeed, no alternative, for, though by the confidence I increased the chances of detection, I minimized and almost precluded the possibility of the ownership being brought home to me. My first anxiety was to find a place, for between my mattresses was out of the question, and I at length decided on the flooring; but selecting a plank and removing the nails are two different things, and I should have been defeated at the very outset. Chance, however, favoured me; and one day, to my great delight, a ram was caught in the thicket, in the shape of a carpenter, come to repair a window. As opportunity offered, I pointed out to him a short plank, and leaving the room, said, “I shall be back in ten minutes; meanwhile, if you remove those nails, and replace the plank so as not to be observable, I’ll give you as much grub as you can carry away.” These instructions would have been ample, but fearing his zeal to earn the food might outrun his discretion, I popped my head in and added, “If you’re caught messing about, kindly remember I know nothing about it.” This will hardly be deemed chivalrous, though strictly in accordance with etiquette in giddy Clerkenwell. Being satisfied with his work, but dreading to explore my secret cave, I told a cleaner to collect all the spare bread-and-butter he could find. So well did he carry out my request that he shortly appeared with thirty-eight slices, but so bulky was the quantity that it was necessary to smuggle it in, and the coal-scuttle was pressed into the service; but my carpenter did not object, and, removing the lump that concealed it from the vulgar (turnkey) gaze, proceeded to devour it. With his mouth full of one slice and shoving in another, he occasionally gargled out, “This is a treat!” “This is jam!” until sixteen slices had disappeared. He now began to show signs of distress, and secreted the rest inside his shirt; but what between the sixteen slices inside and the twenty-two outside, his dimensions had so increased that detection was a certainty. I therefore refused to let him leave unless he swallowed eight more—just to make an even two dozen—and the unhappy man again began. I can see him now, sitting on the window-sill, pretending to hammer, his eyes starting out of his head, imploring me to “let it be;” but I was firm, and had not the remotest intention of jeopardising my position by any such weakness. As the last piece disappeared, he was speechless, and I almost feared he was choked; but my mind was considerably relieved by his asking me, for mercy’s sake, to give him a drop of water. But there was none in the room, and, telling him it was all nonsense, and that the walk downstairs would make it all right, saw him leave the room with considerable satisfaction.

That evening I explored my cavern, which surpassed my fondest expectations; the architect must have put it there on purpose, so admirably was it adapted. Lifting up the eighteen-inch plank, I discovered a hollow place about six inches deep and two feet square. I now lost no time in getting my supplies, and, making a bag, at once filled it with paper, envelopes, a knife, pencil, and a cake of tobacco. From 6 to 7 A.M. was my favourite hour for writing and other business. I then carefully replaced my treasures, and sent off my letters, leaving nothing criminating about me except five or six atoms of tobacco, which I would have swallowed rather than that they should have been discovered. There were several advantages connected with a choice of this hour. In it one was perfectly safe from interference; so busy, indeed, was everybody, that the orange-peel man, who was busy counting and inspecting, and the other officials sending off night reports, would never have dreamt of anyone devoting this particular hour to the breach of a dozen rules.

As time wore on, I began to dread the detection of my hiding-place; so conspicuous, too, did it appear to my guilty conscience that I determined to abandon it. The light seemed to pour on its well-worn crevices, the Governor stood on it twice or thrice a week, the surgeons crossed it a dozen times a day, warders absolutely hovered over it all day long; so I communicated with the cleaner, and entered into an arrangement whereby, for a consideration of food and a piece of tobacco daily, he was to secrete my bag elsewhere. I felt it was madness to trust a confirmed thief, but there was no alternative; and within a week I discovered the fallacy of there being any honour amongst thieves, and the brute I had treated with the greatest liberality stole my bag, and came to me with a whining tale of how it had been discovered and taken away. It never alarmed me, as it would had I really believed him; and shortly after the whole conspiracy was revealed to me by about the only reliable prisoner amongst them, and I had undoubted proof of the complicity of every cleaner in the place.

“Whence comest thou, Gehazi?” (An exhortation to repentance)

My weary afternoons I usually beguiled by pantomimic love-passages with a frowsy damsel in a neighbouring house. Our acquaintance began as I watched a portion of her graceful form bulging over a window-sill she was cleaning at the time, which ripened into such an intimacy, that day by day we looked out for each other, and exchanged such protestations of devotion as might be conveyed by her holding up to me portions of her employer’s eatables, such as eggs and once a steak, which I gracefully reciprocated by exposing Government property, such as a medicine bottle and occasionally bread-and-butter. Graceful Selina! may my successor have been more worthy of your innocent virgin heart!