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1912-dec-21, p 1062

SIR, — In your interesting review of Mr. T. E. Kebbel's "The Battle of Life" (December 7th, page 969) reference is made to Sloman's of Cursitor Street, Chancery Lane. Allusion is also made to the idea that this "spunging house" (where debtors could be legally detained by bailiff or sheriff's officer) may have been Moss's, to which Thackeray consigns Rawdon Crawley. Since the abolition in 1869 of imprisonment for debt, debtors' prisons and "spunging houses" have alike disappeared; but I should be glad of the opportunity of directing attention to the fact that Sloman's is the "Coavinses" of Dickens's "Bleak House." In this "spunging house" Harold Skimpole (Leigh Hunt?) probably passed occasionally some of his days. In the late 'fifties I worked as a boy in an office in Took's Court, the back premises of which adjoined and looked out on the garden of Sloman's house of detention. The wall of the said garden or yard was surmounted by tall iron railings with their points curved inwards, so that escape was not easy. In this enclosure the unfortunate debtors paced sadly up and down for exercise, guarded further by a large black dog. The site of Sloman's is now covered by Imperial Chambers on the north side of Cursitor Street, nearly opposite the Apple Tree and Mitre. This public-house was rebuilt some years ago; the previous building bore on its fa&ccdil;ade a large painting of an apple tree with a bishop's mitre in the centre. The local tradition of the period ascribed the painting to Morland. I wonder what has become of it? In Took's Court at that time lived Snagsby (probably a Mr. Northcote?), from the window of whose house Mr. Tulkinghorn glanced across to the coffee-room of "Coavinses," and round the corner in Chancery Lane little Miss Flite (Jarndyce v. Jarndyce) might be seen playfully tapping the bewigged barristers on the shoulder with her umbrella. I frequently saw her. I think she lived in an attic in Chichester Rents, the window of which in spring and summer was gay with flowers. — I am, Sir, &c.,

W. J. FITZSIMMONS.

  3 Avenue Road, Crouch End, N.

1913-jan-04, pp 17-18

SIR, — The letter of Mr. W. J. Fitzsimmons contained in the Spectator of December 21st [1912] has prompted me to spend an hour or two in the Law Society's library, turning over old Law-lists and such-like. My search has not been thorough enough to enable me to state positively that between the years 1825 and 1853 the only sponging house ("house of custody" is the politer name) in Cursitor Street was No. 4, but it seems pretty clear that such was the case. If so, it is manifest that this house was the Moss's of "Vanity Fair" and the Coavinses' of "Bleak House." No. 4 was on the north side of Cursitor Street, and it stood about half-way between Chancery Lane and Took's Court. Its site is now covered by part of Lincoln's Inn Chambers. But even if this house was Moss's and Coavinses', Abraham Sloman (or rather Slowman, for so the name appears in the Law-list and Post Office Directory) did not own the place at the date of Rawdon Craaley's arrest. Remembering what Thackeray says about it and about its keeper, it is only fair to Slowman's memory to put this on record. Nor was he the owner at any time during the period covered by "Bleak House." From 1825 to 1831 No. 4 was kept as a house of custody by a sheriff's officer named J. Sweet. There is no mention of it among the like houses in the Law-list for the next eleven years, but in 1843 it reappears there as a house of custody kept by Slowman, even then a sheriff's officer of long standing ; and the subsequent issues of the Law-list show that, either alone or jointly with a partner or partners, he continued to keep it down to some date in 1864. It was in or about 1827 that Rawdon Crawley was arrested, and it is impossible to attribute any incident in "Bleak House" — which was published as a book in 1853 — to a date subsequent to the 'thirties.

  Forty-odd years ago I often saw Abraham Slowman. He was then a very old man of pronounced Semitic aspect, living in general repute at the St. George's end of Herne Bay. Only the summer before last I wandered into a tangled wilderness there which in my boyhood had been his garden; and as I strolled round it I meditated upon his queer calling, and I wondered whether his tap had ever fallen upon Disraeli's shoulder. It is interesting to remember that No. 4 Cursitor Street was twice described by Thackeray, namely in chapter xi. of the "Hogarty Diamond," and in chapter xviii. of "Vanity Fair." No one who reads these descriptions, the one published in 1841 and the other in 1848, can doubt that the writer had been inside. I think we may assume that Dickens also had crossed the threshold; the probability is that he went there to lodge ca.-sa.'s ^* during his Gray's Inn clerkship.

  When Thackeray saw the place the whole yard was barred over like a cage. He mentions this in both his descriptions. We learn from Mr. Fitzsimmons' letter that by the late 'fifties this cage had shrunk to a mere fringe of iron railings with their points curved inwards. Even in the 'forties sponging-houses were almost things of the past. In 1825 there were nine or ten of them, under the authority of the Sheriff of Middlesex; eighteen years later there were only two. I have not had time to ascertain the cause of their decay, but my impression is that the Act for abolishing arrest on mesne process (October 1st, 1838) was the industry's ruin. A sad thing this for novel-writers! — I am, Sir, &c.,

CHRISTIAN TEARLE..