Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison. English-only reading by default; switch among English, Chinese, and Spanish, or compare languages side by side.
This chapter develops the memoir’s account of Chapter XLV. IN MOOD AS LONELY, IN PLIGHT AS DESPERATE AS HIS., connecting personal narrative with the financial, legal, and prison-world setting of the period. The chapter’s opening perspective is: I have related how, the Sunday after my sentence, in my despair I took the little Bible off the shelf. The other books I had at Chatham besides the Bible were a dictionary and “The Life of the Prophet Jeremiah.“ Once, soon after my arrival in Chatham, I took the Jeremiah down from the shelf, but speedily put it back and made a vow never to take it down again; and I never did.
This chapter is for readers following Bidwell’s memoir chapter by chapter, especially the section titled “Chapter XLV. IN MOOD AS LONELY, IN PLIGHT AS DESPERATE AS HIS..” It is most useful for readers interested in financial crime history, nineteenth-century banking culture, criminal justice, prison memoir, and the social setting of the period.
Read “Chapter XLV. IN MOOD AS LONELY, IN PLIGHT AS DESPERATE AS HIS.” as a historical memoir rather than guidance. The banking procedures, legal assumptions, public reputation, social judgments, travel conditions, and prison practices described belong to Bidwell’s nineteenth-century setting and may not match modern institutions.