Page:Fitzgerald - Pickwickian manners and customs (1897).djvu/28

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
22
PICKWICKIAN MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.

unguent of the hair. "Moral pocket handkerchiefs," for teaching religion to natives of the West Indies, combining amusement with instruction, "blending select tales with woodcuts," are no longer used.

Old Temple Bar has long since disappeared, so has the Holborn Valley. The Fleet was pulled down about ten years after Pickwick, but imprisonment for debt continued until 1860 or so. Indeed Mr. Lang seems to think it still goes on, for he says it is now "disguised as imprisonment for contempt of Court." This is a mistake. In the County Courts when small debts under £3 10s. are sued for, the judge will order a small weekly sum to be paid in discharge; in case of failure to pay, he will punish the disobedience by duress not exceeding fifteen days—a wholly different thing from imprisonment for debt.

Where now are the Pewter Pots, and the pot boy with his strap of "pewters?"—we would have to search for them now. Long