I'm still reading on Pickwick Papers. It has been a very amusing book, and - dare I say it - one that would go on that short list of Books I Would Take To a Desert Island.

But I admit part I read the other night made me sad, and made me have to put it down after reading that.

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Pickwick is sent to debtor's prison (though not for the reason you might suspect, had you not read the book). He sees a number of men basically carousing during their time.

But then - and this is the part that startled me and made me sad - there is the description of an entire family that's been locked up:

In a third [cell], a man, with his wife and a whole crowd of children, might be seen making up a scanty bed on the ground, or upon a few chairs, for the younger ones to pass the night in...

And while I suppose the children would fare better on the "inside" with their parents (if there was no one else to care for them), still...

As much as I rail against people behaving irresponsibly and spending themselves into debt, I'm glad we don't have debtor's prisons today.

Later on, Sam Weller (who is often actually the voice of wisdom in the book) comments that imprisonment may not be so bad for some of the "idle fellows" who are housed there, who now have all the time they could want to drink and play cards, but for the workingmen - the people who tried to keep up what dignity they could, who worked when they could and paid their bills as much as possible - the imprisonment meant not only did they get further behind in their lives, but it was also a sort of soul-breaking thing.

But there is something about that image of the man trying to make beds up for his small children on the floor, or on chairs (and what hard and unpleasant beds they must be) kind of gets to me.