SLOWMAN'S SPONGING HOUSE.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SricTATort."] SIR,—The letter of Mr. W. J. Fitzsimmons contained in the Spectator of December 21st 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 1 al 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 pub- lished in 1841 and the other in 1848, can doubt that the writer had been inside. I think we may assume that Dickens also had eeoseed the threshold ; the probability is that he went there to lodge ea.e.seese daring his Gray's Inn clerkship.
When Thaokeray 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, uhder 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 snesne Process (October 1st, 1838) was the industry's ruin. A sad _thing this for novel-writers !—I am, Sir, &c.,
CHRISTIAN TEARLE.
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