 which
many (during the awful epidemic of 1801) died before they could be
removed to the hospital, succumbing at once to the malady owing to the
debility resulting from their nakedness and starvation.  The description
of the sleeping arrangements of the “Romans” does not therefore apply to
“Les Misérables” of Norman Cross.

Similar vices and similar conditions of life produce similar results, but
the impression left after reading Thomson’s graphic and terrible picture
of the “Romans” of Dartmoor is only more intense, in consequence of its
details, than that left after reading the laconic statements contained in
the letters and reports of Captain Woodriff, Commissioner Serle, and
others as to the same class at Norman Cross.

The authorities at both prisons were equally powerless to put down the
gambling and the usury with all its attendant miseries.  It is somewhat
singular that the “Romans” appear to have withstood disease, while in the
epidemic at Norman Cross, which was probably enteric fever, a disease at
that date not differentiated from other conditions, such as debility,
diarrhoea, simple fever, etc., “Les Misérables,” as evidenced by the
surgeon’s notes, succumbed. {113}

                                * * * * *

There were well-defined grades of society among the prisoners.  The
first, called “Les Lords,” consisted of men of good family who were
drawing on their bankers or receiving regular remittances from home; “Les
Labourers” were those who added to their rations by the manufacture of
articles for sale in the market; “Les Indifférents” did nothing but
lounge about the yards, and had to content themselves with the Government
rations; “Les Missables” were the gamblers and hatchers of mischief.  The
fifth grade is so remarkable that it deserves a chapter to itself.  It
was also composed of habitual gamblers, nick-named ironically “Les
Kaiserlies” by the other prisoners, but generally known by the title
chosen by themselves, “Les Romains,” because the cockloft, to which they
were banished in each prison, was called “Le Capitole.”  The cock-lofts
had been intended by the architect for promenade in wet weather, but they
had soon to be put to this baser use.

To the sociologist there can be nothing more significant than the fact
that a body of civilised men, some of them well educated, will under
certain circumstances adopt a savage and bestial mode of life, not as a
relapse, but as an organised proceeding for the gratification of their
appetites and as a revolt against the trammels of social law.  The
evolution of the “Romans” was natural enough.  The gambling fever seized
upon the entire prison, and the losers, having nothing but their clothes
and bedding to stake, turned these into money and lost them.  Unable to
obtain other garments, and feeling themselves shunned by their former
companions, they betook themselves to the society of men as unfortunate
as themselves, and went to live in the cockloft, because no one who lived
in the more desirable floors cared to have them as neighbours.  As they
grew in numbers they began to feel a pride in their isolation, and to
persuade themselves that they had come to it by their own choice.  In
imitation of the floors below, where a “Commissaire” was chosen by public
election, and implicitly obeyed, they elected some genial, devil-may-care
rascal to be their “General,” who only held office because he never
attempted to enforce his authority in the interests of decency and order.
At the end of the first six months the number of admitted “Romans” was
250, and in the later years it exceeded 500, though the number was always
fluctuating.  In order to qualify for the Order, it was necessary to
consent to the sale of every remaining garment and article of bedding to
purchase tobacco for the use of the community.  The communism was
complete.  Among the whole 500 there was no kind of private property,
except a few filthy rags, donned as a concession to social prejudice.  A
few old blankets held in common, with a hole in the middle for the head
like a poncho, were used by those whose business took them into the
yards.

In the Capitole itself every one lived in a state of nudity, and slept
naked on the concrete floor, for the only hammock allowed was that of the
“General,” who slept in the middle and allocated the lairs of his
constituents.  To this end a rough sort of discipline was maintained, for
whereas 500 men could sleep without much discomfort on a single floor in
three tiers of hammocks, the actual floor space was insufficient for more
than a third of that number of human bodies lying side by side.  At
night, therefore, the Capitole must have been an extraordinary spectacle.
The floor was carpeted with nude bodies, all lying on the same side, so
closely packed that it was impossible to get a foot between them.  At
nightfall the “General” shouted “Fall in,” and the men ranged themselves
in two lines facing one another.  At a second word of command, alternate
files took two paces to the front and rear and closed inward, and at the
word “Bas” they all lay down on their right sides.  At intervals during
the night the “General” would cry “Pare à viser” (Attention!), “A Dieu,
Va!” and they would all turn over.

From morning till night groups of Romans were to be seen raking the
garbage heaps for scraps of offal, potato peelings, rotten turnips, and
fish-heads, for though they drew their ration of soup at mid-day, they
were always famishing, partly because the ration itself was insufficient,
partly because they exchanged their rations with the infamous
provision-buyers for tobacco, with which they gambled.  Pride was
certainly not a failing of which they could be accused.  In the alleys
between the tiers of hammocks on the floors below you might always see
some of them lurking.  If a man were peeling a potato, a dozen of these
wretches would be round him in a moment to beg for the peel; they would
form a ring round every mess bucket, like hungry dogs, watching the
eaters in the hope that one would throw away a morsel of gristle, and
fighting over every bone.  Sometimes the continual state of starvation
and cold did its work, and the poor wretch was carried to the hospital to
die; but generally the bodies of the Romans acquired a toughened fibre,
which seemed immune from epidemic disease.

Very soon after the occupation of the prison the Romans had received
their nickname, and had been expelled from the society of decent men, for
we find that, on August 15th, 1809, five hundred Romans received
permission to pay a sort of state visit to No. 6 prison.  At the head of
the procession marched their “General,” clad in a flash uniform made of
blankets, embroidered with straw, which looked like gold lace at a
distance.  Behind him capered the band—twenty grotesque vagabonds blowing
flageolets and trumpets, and beating iron kettles and platters.  The
ragged battalion marched in column of fours along the grass between the
grille and the boundary wall without a rag on any of them but a breech
clout, and they would have kept their absurd gravity till the end, had
not a rat chanced to run out of the cookhouse.  This was too much for
them; breaking rank, they chased it back into the kitchen, and the most
nimble caught it and, after scuffling for it with a neighbour, tore it to
pieces with his teeth and ate it raw.  The rest, with whetted appetites,
fell upon the loaves and looted them.

The guard was called out, and the soldiers marched into the mêlée with
fixed bayonets; but were immediately surrounded by the naked mob,
disarmed with shouts of laughter, and marched off as prisoners towards
the main gate amid cries of “_Vive l’Empereur_!”  Here they were met by
Captain Cotgrave hurrying to the rescue at the head of a strong
detachment.  The “General” of the Romans halted his men and made a mock
heroic speech to the agent.  “Sir,” he said, striking a theatrical
attitude, “we were directing our steps to your house to hand over to your
care our prisoners and their arms.  This is only a little incidental joke
as far as your heroic soldiers are concerned, who are now as docile as
sheep.  We now beg you to order double rations to be issued as a reward
for our gallantry, and also to make good the breach which we have just
made in the provisions of our honourable hosts.”  Captain Cotgrave
struggled with his