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1A Sight "You know the Old Bailey well, no doubt?" said one of the oldest of clerks to Jerry the messenger. "Ye-es, sir,"
2returned Jerry, in something of a dogged manner. "I do know the Bailey." "Just so. And you know Mr. Lorry." "I know Mr.
3Lorry, sir, much better than I know the Bailey. Much better," said Jerry, not unlike a reluctant witness at the
4establishment in question, "than I, as a honest tradesman, wish to know the Bailey." "Very well. Find the door where the
5witnesses go in, and show the door-keeper this note for Mr. Lorry. He will then let you in." "Into the court, sir?"
6"Into the court." Mr. Cruncher's eyes seemed to get a little closer to one another, and to interchange the inquiry,
7"What do you think of this?" "Am I to wait in the court, sir?" he asked, as the result of that conference. "I am going
8to tell you. The door-keeper will pass the note to Mr. Lorry, and do you make any gesture that will attract Mr. Lorry's
9attention, and show him where you stand. Then what you have to do, is, to remain there until he wants you." "Is that
10all, sir?" "That's all. He wishes to have a messenger at hand. This is to tell him you are there." As the ancient clerk
11deliberately folded and superscribed the note, Mr. Cruncher, after surveying him in silence until he came to the
12blotting-paper stage, remarked: "I suppose they'll be trying Forgeries this morning?" "Treason!" "That's quartering,"
13said Jerry. "Barbarous!" "It is the law," remarked the ancient clerk, turning his surprised spectacles upon him. "It is
14the law." "It's hard in the law to spile a man, I think. It's hard enough to kill him, but it's wery hard to spile him,
15sir." "Not at all," retained the ancient clerk. "Speak well of the law. Take care of your chest and voice, my good
16friend, and leave the law to take care of itself. I give you that advice." "It's the damp, sir, what settles on my chest
17and voice," said Jerry. "I leave you to judge what a damp way of earning a living mine is." "Well, well," said the old
18clerk; "we all have our various ways of gaining a livelihood. Some of us have damp ways, and some of us have dry ways.
19Here is the letter. Go along." Jerry took the letter, and, remarking to himself with less internal deference than he
20made an outward show of, "You are a lean old one, too," made his bow, informed his son, in passing, of his destination,
21and went his way. They hanged at Tyburn, in those days, so the street outside Newgate had not obtained one infamous
22notoriety that has since attached to it. But, the gaol was a vile place, in which most kinds of debauchery and villainy
23were practised, and where dire diseases were bred, that came into court with the prisoners, and sometimes rushed
24straight from the dock at my Lord Chief Justice himself, and pulled him off the bench. It had more than once happened,
25that the Judge in the black cap pronounced his own doom as certainly as the prisoner's, and even died before him. For
26the rest, the Old Bailey was famous as a kind of deadly inn-yard, from which pale travellers set out continually, in
27carts and coaches, on a violent passage into the other world: traversing some two miles and a half of public street and
28road, and shaming few good citizens, if any. So powerful is use, and so desirable to be good use in the beginning. It
29was famous, too, for the pillory, a wise old institution, that inflicted a punishment of which no one could foresee the
30extent; also, for the whipping-post, another dear old institution, very humanising and softening to behold in action;
31also, for extensive transactions in blood-money, another fragment of ancestral wisdom, systematically leading to the
32most frightful mercenary crimes that could be committed under Heaven. Altogether, the Old Bailey, at that date, was a
33choice illustration of the precept, that "Whatever is is right;" an aphorism that would be as final as it is lazy, did
34it not include the troublesome consequence, that nothing that ever was, was wrong. Making his way through the tainted
35crowd, dispersed up and down this hideous scene of action, with the skill of a man accustomed to make his way quietly,
36the messenger found out the door he sought, and handed in his letter through a trap in it. For, people then paid to see
37the play at the Old Bailey, just as they paid to see the play in Bedlam--only the former entertainment was much the
38dearer. Therefore, all the Old Bailey doors were well guarded--except, indeed, the social doors by which the criminals
39got there, and those were always left wide open. After some delay and demur, the door grudgingly turned on its hinges a
40very little way, and allowed Mr. Jerry Cruncher to squeeze himself into court. "What's on?" he asked, in a whisper, of
41the man he found himself next to. "Nothing yet." "What's coming on?" "The Treason case." "The quartering one, eh?" "Ah!"
42returned the man, with a relish; "he'll be drawn on a hurdle to be half hanged, and then he'll be taken down and sliced
43before his own face, and then his inside will be taken out and burnt while he looks on, and then his head will be
44chopped off, and he'll be cut into quarters. That's the sentence." "If he's found Guilty, you mean to say?" Jerry added,
45by way of proviso. "Oh! they'll find him guilty," said the other. "Don't you be afraid of that." Mr. Cruncher's
46attention was here diverted to the door-keeper, whom he saw making his way to Mr. Lorry, with the note in his hand. Mr.
47Lorry sat at a table, among the gentlemen in wigs: not far from a wigged gentleman, the prisoner's counsel, who had a
48great bundle of papers before him: and nearly opposite another wigged gentleman with his hands in his pockets, whose
49whole attention, when Mr. Cruncher looked at him then or afterwards, seemed to be concentrated on the ceiling of the
50court. After some gruff coughing and rubbing of his chin and signing with his hand, Jerry attracted the notice of Mr.
51Lorry, who had stood up to look for him, and who quietly nodded and sat down again. "What's he got to do with the case?"
52asked the man he had spoken with. "Blest if I know," said Jerry. "What have you got to do with it, then, if a person may
53inquire?" "Blest if I know that either," said Jerry. The entrance of the Judge, and a consequent great stir and settling
54down in the court, stopped the dialogue. Presently, the dock became the central point of interest. Two gaolers, who had
55been standing there, went out, and the prisoner was brought in, and put to the bar. Everybody present, except the one
56wigged gentleman who looked at the ceiling, stared at him. All the human breath in the place, rolled at him, like a sea,
57or a wind, or a fire. Eager faces strained round pillars and corners, to get a sight of him; spectators in back rows
58stood up, not to miss a hair of him; people on the floor of the court, laid their hands on the shoulders of the people
59before them, to help themselves, at anybody's cost, to a view of him--stood a-tiptoe, got upon ledges, stood upon next
60to nothing, to see every inch of him. Conspicuous among these latter, like an animated bit of the spiked wall of
61Newgate, Jerry stood: aiming at the prisoner the beery breath of a whet he had taken as he came along, and discharging
62it to mingle with the waves of other beer, and gin, and tea, and coffee, and what not, that flowed at him, and already
63broke upon the great windows behind him in an impure mist and rain. The object of all this staring and blaring, was a
64young man of about five-and-twenty, well-grown and well-looking, with a sunburnt cheek and a dark eye. His condition was
65that of a young gentleman. He was plainly dressed in black, or very dark grey, and his hair, which was long and dark,
66was gathered in a ribbon at the back of his neck; more to be out of his way than for ornament. As an emotion of the mind
67will express itself through any covering of the body, so the paleness which his situation engendered came through the
68brown upon his cheek, showing the soul to be stronger than the sun. He was otherwise quite self-possessed, bowed to the
69Judge, and stood quiet.
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