CHAPTER I.

Tom Swiggs’ seventh introduction on board of the brig standfast.

It is in the spring of 1847 this history commences.

“Steady a bit!  Here I am, boys, turned up again-a subject of this moral reform school, of moral old Charleston.  If my good old mother thinks it’ll reform a cast-off remnant of human patchwork like me, I’ve nothing to say in protest.  Yes, here I am, comrades (poor Tom Swiggs, as you used to call me), with rum my victor, and modern vengeance hastening my destruction.”  This is the exclamation of poor Tom Swiggs (as his jail companions are pleased to call him), who, in charge of two officers of the law, neither of whom are inclined to regard him with sympathy, is being dragged back again to the Charleston jail.  The loathsome wreck of a once respectable man, he staggers into the corridor, utters a wild shriek as the iron gate closes upon him, and falls headlong upon the floor of the vestibule, muttering, incoherently, “there is no hope for one like me.”  And the old walls re-echo his lamentation.

“His mother, otherwise a kind sort of woman, sends him here.  She believes it will work his reform.  I pity her error-for it is an error to believe reform can come of punishment, or that virtue may be nurtured among vice.”  Thus responds the brusque but kind-hearted old jailer, who view swith an air of compassion his new comer, as he lays, a forlorn mass, exposed to the gaze of the prisoners gathering eagerly about him.

The dejected man gives a struggle, raises himself to his haunches, and with his coarse, begrimed hands resting on his knees, returns the salutation of several of his old friends.  “This, boys, is the seventh time,” he pursues, as if his scorched brain were tossed on a sea of fire, “and yet I’m my mother’s friend.  I love her still-yes, I love her still!” and he shakes his head, as his bleared eyes fill with tears.  “She is my mother,” he interpolates, and again gives vent to his frenzy:  “fellows! bring me brandy-whiskey-rum-anything to quench this flame that burns me up.  Bring it, and when I’m free of this place of torment, I will stand enough for you all to swim in.”

“Shut your whiskey-pipe.  You don’t appreciate the respectability of the company you’ve got among.  I’ve heard of you,” ejaculates a voice in the crowd of lookers-on.

“What of a citizen are you?” inquires Tom, his head dropping sleepily.

“A vote-cribber-Milman Mingle by name; and, like yourself, in for formal reform,” retorts the voice.  And the burly figure of a red, sullen-faced man, comes forward, folds his arms, and looks for some minutes with an air of contempt upon the poor inebriate.

“You’re no better than you ought to be,” incoherently continues Tom, raising his glassy eyes as if to sight his seemingly querulous companion.