There is some dispute as to the origin of the name

Old Bailey

,

whereby,

it seems that the Chamberlains of London have there kept their courts as now they do by the

Guildhall

; and to this day the mayor and justices of this city kept

New Sessions House

their sessions in a part thereof now called the Sessions Hall, both for the city of London and Shire of Middlesex.

Strype describes the [extra_illustrations.2.462.2]  as a fair and stately building, very commodious, and with large galleries on both sides for spectators,

the court-room,

being advanced by stone steps from the ground, with rails and banisters, enclosed from the yard before it; and the bail-dock, which fronts the court where the prisoners are kept until brought to their trials, is also inclosed. Over the court-room is a stately diningroom, sustained by

ten

stone pillars, and over it a platform, headed with rails and banisters. There be

five

lodging-rooms, and other conveniences, on either side the court. It standeth backwards, so it hath no front toward the street; only the gateway leadeth into the yard before the house, which is spacious. It cost above

£ 6,000

the building.

No Popery

The old constitution of this court for malefactors is given by

R. B.,

It,

is called the King's Commission on the Peace of Oyer and Terminer, and Gaol Delivery of Newgate, for the city of London and County of Middlesex, which court is held at Justice Hall, in the

Old Bailey

, commonly called the

Sessions House

, and generally

eight

times, or oftener, every year. The judges are the Lord Mayor, the Recorder, and others of his Majesty's Justices of the Peace of the city of London, the

two

Sheriffs of London being always present; and oftentimes the judges (being always in these commissions) come, and sit to give their assistance. The jurors, for all matters committed in London, are citizens of London, and the jurors for crimes and misdemeanors committed in Middlesex, are freeholders of the said county.

[extra_illustrations.2.464.1] 

Under the general title,

The Central Criminal Court,

The judges of the Central Criminal Court,

are the Lord Mayor(who opens the court), the Sheriffs, the Lord Chancellor (such is the order of the Act), the Judges, the Aldermen, Recorder, Common Serjeant of London, Judge of the Sheriff's Court, or city Commissioner, and any others whom the Crown may appoint as assistants. Of these the Recorder and Common Serjeant are in reality the presiding judges; a judge of the law only assisting when unusual points of the law are involved, or when conviction affects the life of the prisoner. Here are tried crimes of every kind, from treason to the pettiest larceny, and even offences committed on the high seas. The jurisdiction comprises the whole of the metropolis as now defined; with the remainder of Middlesex; the parishes of Richmond and Mortlake, in Surrey; and great part of Essex.

The court is regulated by Act of Parliament and Will. IV., c. .

As to the number of persons who are brought here into public notice, Mr. Sheriff Laurie, writing to the of says,

I find upon investigation that upwards of

two thousand

persons annually are placed at the bar of the

Old Bailey

for trial. About

one

-

third

are acquitted,

one

-

third

are

first

offences, and the remaining portion have been convicted of felony before.

Trials are going on at the almost all the year round. Frequent, however, as they are, there are occasional pauses. Justice, it has been said, must nod sometimes, and therefore it is as well to provide for fitting repose elsewhere than on the judgment-seat. The sittings of the [extra_illustrations.2.464.2]  are held monthly, but as the whole of the month is not occupied in the trial of the prisoners on the calendar, the spare time forms a vacation, and such are the only vacations at the . In consequence of these frequent sittings, trials are often conducted and prisoners rewarded according to their merits, with surprising swiftness. A criminal may be guilty of theft in the morning, be apprehended before night, be committed by a magistrate the next day, and the day after that be tried, convicted, and sentenced at the Old Bailey--a speedy administration of justice, which must be highly gratifying to all concerned.

The usual defence of a thief, especially at the

Old Bailey

,

is an

alibi

. To prove this by perjury is a common act of Newgate friendship; and there seldom is any difficulty in procuring such witnesses. I remember a felon, within this twelvemonth, to have been proved to be in Ireland at the time when the robbery was sworn to have been done in London, and acquitted; but he was scarce gone from the bar, when the witness was himself arrested for a robbery committed in London, at that very time when he swore both he and his friend were in Dublin; for which robbery I think he was tried and executed.

The interior of the Old Court, which, naturally enough, from every point of view is more interesting than that of the New , has been described in a lively manner by a writer in Knight's ().

Passing,

through a door in the wall which encloses the area between Newgate and the courts, we find a flight of steps on our right, leading up into the Old Court. This is used chiefly for prosecutors and witnesses. Farther on in the area, another flight of steps leads to a long passage into a corridor at the back of the court, with

two

doors opening into the latter, by

one

of which the judges and sheriffs reach the bench, and by the other, the barristers their place in the centre at the bottom. Both doors also lead to seats reserved for visitors. We enter, pause, and look round. The

first

sentiment is

one

of disappointment. The great and moral power and pre-eminence of the court makes

one

, however idly and unconsciously, anticipate a grander physical exhibition. What does meet our gaze is no more than a square hall of sufficient length, and breadth, and height, lighted up by

three

large square windows on the opposite wall, showing the top of the gloomy walls of Newgate, having on the left a gallery close to the ceiling, with projecting boxes, and on the right, the bench, extending the whole length of the wall, with desks at intervals for the use of the judges, whilst in the body of the court are,

first

, a dock for the prisoners below the gallery, with stairs descending to the covered passage by which prisoners are conveyed to and from the prison; then, just in advance of the left-hand corner of the dock, the circular witness-box, and in a similarly relative position to the witness-box, the jury-box, below the windows of the court, an arrangement that enables the jury to see clearly and without turning, the faces of the witnesses and of the prisoners; that enables the witness to identify the prisoner; and lastly, that enables the judges on the bench, and the counsel in the centre of the court below, to keep jury, witnesses, and prisoners

all at once within the same, or nearly the same, line of view. We need only add to these features of the place the formidable row of law-books which occupies the centre of the green-baized table, around which are the counsel, reminding us of the passage in the

Beggars' Opera

--

The charge is prepared, the lawyers are met, The judges all ranged, a terrible show;

the double line of reporters occupying the

two

seats below us; the sheriff in attendance for the day, looking so spruce in his court suit, stepping noiselessly in and out; and lastly the goodly personage in the blue and furred robes and gold chain, who sits in the centre on the chief seat, with the gilded sword of justice suspended over his head against the crimson-lined wall. Some abstruse document, apparently, just now engages his attention, for he appears utterly absorbed in it, bending over his desk.

It must surely be the Lord Chancellor come to try some great case,

thinks many an innocent spectator; but he rises, and we perceive it is only an ex-mayor reading the newspaper of the day. But we forgot: Hazlitt said that a city apprentice who did not esteem the Lord Mayor the greatest man in the world, would come some day to be hanged; and here everybody apparently is of the same opinion.

Who, then, is the judge?

one

naturally asks; when, looking more attentively, we perceive for the

first

time, beyond the representative of civic majesty, which thus asserts its rights, some

one

writing, taking frequent but brief glances at the prisoners or the witnesses, but never turning his head in any other direction, speaking to no

one

on the bench, unspoken to. That is a judge of the land, quietly doing the whole business of the court.

In , both the Old Court and the were ventilated, upon Dr. Reid's plan, from chambers beneath the floors, filled with air filtered from an apartment outside the building, the air being drawn into them by an enormous discharge upon the highest part of the edifice, or propelled into them by a fanner. From the entire building the vitiated air is received in a large chamber in the roof of the Old Court, whence it is discharged by a gigantic iron cowl, feet in diameter, weighing tons, and the point of the arrow of the guiding vane weighing . The subterrannean air-tunnels pass through a portion of the old city wall.

It was at the , in , that Richard Savage, the dissolute poet, for whom Dr. Johnson seems to have felt an affection, was tried. The poet was out, night, drinking and rioting with gentlemen named Merchant and Gregory, when they agreed to turn in at

Robinson's

Among other celebrated criminals who have been tried at the and Central Criminal Courts, may be briefly mentioned the following:-- Major Strangways, the assassin, in ; Colonel Turner and his family, for burglary in , ; Green, Berry, and Hill, for the murder of Sir Edmundbury Godfrey, ; Count Koningsmark and others for the assassination of Mr. Thynne, ; rowland Walters and others, for the murder of Sir Charles Pym, Bart., ; Harrison, for the murder of Dr. Clenche, ; Beau Fielding, for bigamy, ; Richard Thornhill, Esq., for killing Sir Cholmeley Deering in a duel, ; the Marquis di Paleotti, for the murder of his servant in , ; Major Oneby, for killing in a duel, and ; Jonathan Wild, the thief-taker, ; the infamous Colonel Charteris, ; Elizabeth Canning, an inexplicable mystery, ; Baretti, for stabbing, ; the Perraus, for forgery, ; the Rev. Mr. Hackman, for shooting Miss Reay, ; Ryland, the engraver, for forgery, ; Barrington, the pickpocket, ; Renwick Williams, for stabbing, ; Theodore Gardelle, for murder, ; Hadfield, for shooting at George III., ; Captain Macnamara, for killing Colonel Montgomery in a duel, ; Aslett, the Bank clerk, for forgery on the Bank to the extent of ,

burking,

But besides those criminals, outcasts of society, and notorious for their evil deeds, the has disposed of another class, distinguished by their noble and elevated principles, and famed for their patriotism. Here were tried, in , immediately after the Restoration, those of the judges of Charles I. who were still alive, and, relying on the promised bill of indemnity, had remained in England; and years later, in the same reign, a nobleman whose name has become a household word--in connection with his illustrious friend, Sidney-Lord William Russell.

The trial of the regicides commenced on the , before a court of commissioners, of whom some were old royalists; others, such as Manchester, Say, Annesley, and Hollis, had been all members of the Long Parliament; and with these sat Monk, Montague, and Cooper, the associates of Cromwell, who, would think, from motives of delicacy, would have withheld from the tribunal. The prisoners were in number, and included Sir Hardress Waller, Major-General Harrison, Colonel Carew, Cook, Hugh Peters, Scott, Harry Marten, and Scroop, among other scarcely less noticeable names. Waller was called; he pleaded guilty, and thus escaped the scaffold. Harrison's turn came next. Animated by a fervid spirit of enthusiasm, perfectly free from all alloy of worldly motives, he spoke boldly in his defence.

Maybe I might be a little mistaken,

but I did it all according to the best of my understanding, desiring to make the revealed will of God in His Holy Scriptures as a guide to me. I humbly conceive that what was done was done in the name of the Parliament of England--that what was done was done by their power and authority; and I do humbly conceive it is my duty to offer unto you in the beginning, that this court, or any court below the High Court of Parliament, hath no jurisdiction of their actions.

I am sorry to see in you so little repentance,

My lord, if it were possible for that blood to be in the body again, and every drop that was shed in the late wars, I could wish it with all my heart; but, my lord, I hope it is lawful to offer in my defence that which, when I did it, I thought I might do. My lord, there was a

House of Commons

as I understood it: perhaps your lordship thinks it was not a

House of Commons

, but it was then the supreme authority of England; it was so reputed both at home and abroad.

It was at the trial of the regicides that the ridiculous story was given in evidence by a soldier, who declared that when Harry Marten and Cromwell signed the death-warrant of the king, they wiped their pens on each other's faces.

The trial of Lord William Russell for his alleged connection with the Rye House Plot commenced at the on the . He was charged with conspiring the death of the king, and consulting how to levy war against him. As was the case in. the trial of the regicides, there is no doubt that the jury was packed by the sheriffs. Lord Russell desired the postponement of the trial

You would not have given the king an hour's notice for saving his life; the trial must proceed.

Yes a servant,

any of your servants shall assist you in writing anything you please for you.

My lord,

my wife is here to do it.

Of that sweet saint who sat by Russell's side.

Every knows how the trial ended, and how the unfortunate but noble-minded Russell was, on the , executed in .

The Press-Yard at the still, by its name, commemorates of the cruelties of our old statute-book. In all cases where a criminal refused to plead at the bar, in order to preserve his property from being forfeited to, the Crown, the was used. The most celebrated case of the application of this torture was in , when Major Strangways endured it, to save his estate. He and his elder sister had shared a farm peacefully enough, til the sister married a lawyer named Fussell, whom Strangways disliked. He had been, indeed, heard to say that if ever his sister married Fussell, he would be the death of him in his study, or elsewhere. day Fussell was shot at his lodgings in London, and suspicion fell on Strangways, who consented to the ordeal of touch. At his trial Strangways refused to plead. He wished to bestow his estate on his best friends, and he hoped to escape the ignominy of the gibbet. Lord Chief Justice Glynn then passed the sentence,

That he be put into a mean house, stopped from any light, and be laid upon his back, with his body bare; that his arms be stretched forth with a cord, the

one

to

one

side, the other to the other side of the prison, and in like manner his legs be used ; and that upon his body be laid as much iron and stone as he can bear, and more. The

first

day he shall have

three

morsels of barley bread, and the next he shall drink thrice of the water in the next channel to the prison door, but of no spring or fountain water; and this shall be his punishment till he die.

On the Monday following Strangways was clothed in white from top to toe, and wearing a mourning cloak (for indeed it was his own funeral to which he was going). His friends placed themselves at the corner of the press, and when he. gave the word, put on the weights. This was done till he uttered the words,

Lord. Jesus, receive my soul,

After the almost entire abolition of this cruel practice, it was the custom to force the prisoners to plead, if possible, by screwing the thumb with whipcord, a sort of buccaneer form of cruelty. In Mary Andrews was tortured thus. The whipcords broke, but she gave way with the . The same year (for the press was still partially continued) the cord was tried on a criminal named Nathaniel Hawes, who then was pressed under a weight of , and he consented to plead. According to writer on the subject, the cord torture was last used about .

A tragic episode in the history of the administration of justice in the was the invasion of the court by the gaol-fever during the sessions of . The gaol-fever raged so violently in the neighbouring prison that the effluvia, entering the court, caused the death of the Judge of the Common Pleas, Sir Thomas Abney, Baron Clark, Pennant the historian's

respected kinsman,

The occasion of this misadventure, and a few particulars concerning it, have been recorded for the benefit of posterity. A Captain Clarke was being tried for killing a Captain Turner, and the court was unusually crowded. About prisoners were tried, and they were kept all day cooped up in small rooms feet by feet each way, and only feet high. It was remarked that the Lord Chief Justice and the Recorder, who sat on the Lord Mayor's right hand, caught, while the rest of the bench, on the left, escaped, the infection. This was attributed to the draught, that carried the infected air in that direction. Every precaution was afterwards taken, says Pennant, to keep the court airy; but as several of these fatal accidents had already happened in the kingdom, it was rather surprising

that the neglect of the salutary precautions was continued till the time of this awakening call.

Upon the outbreak of the gaol-fever the custom arose of placing rue in front of the dock of the to prevent infection: so it is stated in Lawrence's (). At the trial of Manning and his wife for murder, it will be remembered that at the conclusion of a speech by of the counsel, Mrs. Manning gathered some of

the sprigs of rue placed on the dock,

learned

Over the court-room is a dining-room, where the judges have long been in the habit of dining when the court was over--a practice commemorated by a well-known line--

And wretches hang that jurymen may dine.

If we are not misinformed,

the fiat has gone forth already against

one

class of city dinners, which was altogether peculiar of its kind. We allude to the dinner given by the sheriffs during the

Old Bailey

sittings to the judges and aldermen in attendance, the Recorder, Common Serjeant, city pleaders, and occasionally a few members of the Bar. The

first

course was rather miscellaneous,

Front Of Newgate From The Old Bailey.

and varied with the season, though marrowpuddings always formed a part of it; the

second

never varied, and consisted exclusively of beefsteaks. The custom was to serve

two

dinners (exact duplicates) a day, the

first

at

three

o'clock, the

second

at

five

. As the judges relieved each other it was impracticable for them to partake of both; but the aldermen often did so, and the chaplain, whose duty it was to preside at the lower end of the table, was never absent from his post. This invaluable public servant persevered from a sheer sense of duty, till he had acquired the habit of eating

two

dinners a day, and practised it for nearly

ten

years without any perceptible injury to his health. We had the pleasure of witnessing his performances at

one

of the

five

o'clock dinners, and can assert with confidence, that the vigour of his attack on the beef-steaks was wholly unimpaired by the effective execution a friend assured us he had done on them

two

hours before. The occasion to which we allude was so remarkable for other reasons, that we have the most distinct recollection of the circumstances. It was the

first

trial of the late St. John Long for rubbing a young lady into her grave. The presiding judges were Mr. Justice Park

and Mr. Baron Garrow, who retired to dinner about

five

, having

first

desired the jury, amongst whom there was a difference of opinion, to be locked up. The dinner proceeded merrily, the beef-steaks were renewed again and again, and received the solemn sanction of judicial approbation repeatedly. Mr. Adolphus told some of his best stories, and the chaplain was on the point of being challenged for a song, when the court-keeper appeared with a face of consternation, to announce that the jury, after being very noisy for an hour or so, had sunk into a dull, dead lull, which, to the experienced in such matters, augurs the longest period of deliberation which the heads, or rather stomachs, of the jury can endure. The trial had, unfortunately, taken place upon a Saturday, and it became a serious question in what manner the refractory jurymen were to be dealt with. Mr. Baron Garrow proposed waiting till within a few minutes of

twelve

, and then discharging them. Mr. Justice Park, the senior judge, and a warm admirer of the times when refractory juries were carried round the country in a cart, would hear of no expedient of the kind. He said a judge was not bound to wait beyond a reasonable hour at night, nor to attend before a reasonable hour in the morning; that Sunday was a

dies non

in law, and that a verdict must be delivered in the presence of the judge. He consequently declared his intention of waiting till what

Surgeons' Hall, Old Bailey, 1800.

he deemed a reasonable hour-namely, about tenand then informing the jury that, if they were not agreed, they must be locked up without fire or candle until a reasonable hour (about

nine

) on the Monday, by which time he trusted they would be unanimous. The effect of such an intimation was not put to the test, for Mr. St. John Long was found guilty about

nine

. We are sorry to be. obliged to add that the worthy chaplain's digestion has at length proved unequal to the double burthen imposed upon it; but the Court of Aldermen, considering him a martyr to their cause, have very properly agreed to grant him an adequate pension for his services.

In - the dinners for sessions, days, cost Sheriff Phillips and his colleague per day--; dozen of wine was consumed at these dinners, costing , so that the total of the bill came to .

And now we take leave of the [extra_illustrations.2.469.1] , according to Garth, in his

That most celebrated place,

Where angry Justice shows her awful face;

Where little villains must submit to fate,

That great ones may enjoy the world in state.

The Old Bailey--that part of the street opposite to Newgate-became the scene of public executions in , on the in which year the culprit suffered here the extreme

new drop,

The front of Newgate continued to be the place of execution in London from to , when an Act was passed directing executions to take place within the walls of prisons. This Act was the result of a commission on capital punishments, appointed in , which, in their report issued in , recommended, amongst other things, that executions should not be public. The number of executions throughout the country has been gradually decreasing for many years, as our laws have become less severe. In there were fortythree executions in London; in , ; in , ; in ; none; in , none; in , ; in , none; in , ; in , ; in , ; in , none; in , ; in , ; in , ; and from to the average has been per annum. What a contrast this presents to the stern old times when the law of the gallows and the scaffold kept our forefathers in order! In the reign of Henry VIII. -- years--it is said that no fewer than criminals were executed in England!

It used to be occasionally the usage to execute the criminal near the scene of his guilt. Those who were punished capitally for the riots of suffered in those parts of the town in which their crimes were committed; and in incendiaries were hanged in , at the eastern end of , opposite the site of the house to which they had set fire.

Since that period,

there have been few executions in London except in front of Newgate. The last deviation from the regular course was in the case of the sailor Cashman, who was hung in

1817

, in

Skinner Street

, opposite the house of Mr. Beckwith, the gunsmith, which he had plundered.

About was witnessed in the the end of an old practice: the body of the criminal just executed was burned for the last time. A woman was the sufferer in this case. She was hung on a low gibbet, and on life being extinct, fagots were heaped around her and over her head, fire was set to the pile, and the corpse was burned to ashes.

The memorable executions at the include those of Mrs. Phepoe, for murder, ; Holloway and Haggerty, ; Bellingham, ; Joseph Hunton (Quaker), ; Bishop and Williams, ; John Pegsworth, ; James Greenacre, ; besides several others already mentioned by us as having undergone trial at the adjoining court of justice.

A dreadful accident took place here at the execution of Holloway and Haggerty, on the , for the murder of Mr. Steele, on Hounslow Heath, in . persons were crushed to death. We have already alluded to the circumstances, and to our previous notice the following account of the catastrophe, by a writer in the , must be regarded as supplementary:--

On the north side of the

Old Bailey

, the multitude to see the execution was so immensely great that, in their movements, they were not inaptly compared to the flow and reflow of the waves of the, sea, when in troubled motion. In the centre of this vast concourse of people was placed a cart, in which persons were accommodated with standing-places to see the culprits; but, it is supposed from the circumstance of too many being admitted into it, the axle-tree gave way, and by the concussion many persons were killed. Unhappily, the mischief did not stop here. A temporary chasm in the crowd being thus made by the fall of the cart, many persons rushed forward to get upon the body of it, which formed a kind of platform, from which they thought they could get a commanding view over the heads of the persons in front. All those who, from choice or necessity, were nearest to the cart, strove to get upon it; and in their eagerness drove those in front headforemost among the crowd beneath, by whom they were trampled under foot, without the power of relieving them. The latter in turn were in like manner assailed, and shared the same fate. This dreadful scene continued for some time. The shrieks of the dying men, women, and children were terrific beyond description, and could only be equalled by the horror of the event.

Offenders frequently stood in the pillory in the , and there, no doubt, were often, as was customary, stoned by the mob, and pelted with rotten eggs, and other equally offensive missiles. The pillory generally consisted of a wooden frame, erected on a scaffolding, with holes

[extra_illustrations.2.471.1]  and folding boards for the admission of the head and hands of him whom it was desired to render thus publicly infamous. Rushworth says that it was invented for the special benefit of mountebanks and quacks,

who having gotten upon banks and forms to abuse the people, were exalted in the same kind,

dairymen for selling mingled butter,

sharply corrected

Thanks to Archbishop Laud, and Star Chamber tyrants,

it figured so conspicuously in the political and polemical disputes which heralded the downfall of the monarchy, as to justify a writer of our own time in saying,

Noble hearts had been tried and tempered in it; daily had been elevated in it mental independence, manly self-reliance, robust, athletic endurance. All from within that has undying worth it had but more plainly exposed to public gaze from without.

The last who stood in the pillory of London was Peter James Bossy, tried for perjury, and sentenced to transportation for years. Previous to being transported he was to be kept for months in Newgate, and to stand for hour in the pillory in the . The pillory part of the sentence was executed on the .

An Act of the British Parliament, dated , put an end to the use of the pillory in the United Kingdom. In it had been abolished as a punishment except for perjury.

The Surgeons' Hall stood in the , on the site of the New , till . Pennant, in his remarks, in connection with the old Court of Justice, that the erection of the Surgeons' Hall in its neighbourhood was an exceedingly convenient circumstance.

By a sort of

second

sight,

the Surgeons' Theatre was built near this court of conviction and Newgate, the concluding stage of the lives forfeited to the justice of their country, several years before the fatal tree was removed from Tyburn td its present site. It is a handsome building, ornamented with Ionic pilasters, and with a double flight of steps to the

first

floor. Beneath is a door for the admission of the bodies of murderers and other felons, who, noxious in their lives, make a sort of reparation to their fellow-creatures by becoming useful after death.

The bodies of murderers, after execution, were dissected in the Surgeons' Theatre, according to an Act passed in , and which was only repealed in the reign of William IV. A curious experiment was performed here, in the beginning of the century, on the body of Foster, who was executed for the murder of his wife. It was

lately,

subjected to the galvanic process, by Mr. Aldini (a nephew of Galvani), in presence of Mr. Keate, Mr. Carpue, and several other professional gentlemen. On the

first

application of the process to the face, the jaw of the deceased criminal began to quiver, and the adjoining muscles were horribly contorted, and

one

eye actually opened. In a subsequent course of the experiment, the right hand was raised and clenched, and the legs and thighs were set in motion; and it appeared to all the bystanders that the wretched man was on the point of being restored to life! The object of these experiments was to show the excitability of the human frame when animal electricity is duly applied; and the possibility of its being efficaciously used in cases of drowning, suffocation, or apoplexy, by reviving the action of the lungs, and thereby rekindling the expiring spark of vitality.

In , Laurence Earl Ferrers was tried before the , for the murder of his steward. He was found guilty, and sentenced

to be hanged by the neck till he was dead; after which his body was to be delivered to Surgeons' Hall, to be dissected and anatomised.

God forbid!

God's will be done!

It was at this hall that Goldsmith presented

The beadle called my name,

with a voice that made me tremble as much as if it had been the sound of the last trumpet. However, there was no remedy: I was conducted into a large hall, where I saw about a dozen of grim faces sitting at a long table,

one

of whom bade me come forward in such an imperious tone, that I was actually for a minute or

two

bereft of my senses.

Whether the same process,

conducted through a like memorable scene, bereft poor Goldsmith altogether of his, cannot now be ascertained. All that is known is told in a dry extract from the books of the

College of Surgeons

:

At a Court of Examiners, held at the Theatre, 21st December, 1758, present

--the names are not given, but there is a long list of the candidates who passed, in the midst of which these occur:

James Bernard, mate to an hospital. Oliver Goldsmith, not qualified for ditto.

A harder sentence,

a more cruel doom than this, at the time, must have seemed, even the

Old Bailey

has not often been witness to; yet, far from blaming that worthy court of examiners, should we not rather feel that much praise is due to them? That they did their duty in rejecting the short, thick, dull, ungainly, over-anxious, over-dressed, simple-looking Irishman who presented himself that memorable day, can hardly, I think, be doubted; but unconsciously they also did a great deal more. They found him not qualified to be a surgeon's mate, but left him qualified to heal the wounds and abridge the sufferings of all the world. They found him querulous with adversity, given up to irresolute fears, too much blinded with failures and sorrows to see the divine uses to which they tended still; and from all this their sternly just and awful decision drove him resolutely back. While the door of the Surgeons' Hall was shut upon him that day, the gate of the beautiful mountain was slowly opening.

[extra_illustrations.2.472.1] ,

the

second

door south of Ship Court,

A description of the would be decidedly incomplete were we to omit giving a sketch of the career of this noted inhabitant. Almost every great man arrives at eminence by zeal and energy, devoted to some particular calling; and it may be worth our pains to look for a little at that which Jonathan made peculiarly his own. His occupation was the restoration of stolen goods, carried on from about the year , through a secret confederacy with all the regular thieves, burglars, and highwaymen of the metropolis, whose depredations he prompted and directed. An Act of Parliament, passed in , tended rather to check the display of his peculiar talents. By this Act persons convicted of receiving or buying goods, knowing them to be stolen, were made liable to transportation for years; and by another clause, with a particular view to Wild's proceedings, a heavy punishment was awarded to all who trafficked in such goods and divided the money with felons. Wild's ingenuity and audacity, however, long enabled him to elude this new law. He was of the cleverest of rogues, and it has been well said, in sense, merited the name of

great,

broker,

At last, after he had amassed a considerable sum, he adopted another and a safer plan.. He opened an office, to which great numbers resorted, in the hope of obtaining the restitution of their property. His light was by no means hid under a bushel, and he kept it burning with the greatest credit and profit to himself. Let us suppose some to have had goods stolen of a considerable value. He calls upon Mr. Wild, at his office, and pays half-a-crown for advice. Wild enters his name

If you call again,

I hope I shall be able to give you some agreeable information.

In the course of this business it will readily be perceived that Wild became possessed of the secrets of every notorious thief about London. All the highwaymen, shoplifters, and housebreakers knew that they were under the necessity of complying with whatever he thought fit to demand. Should they oppose his inclination, they were certain, ere long, to be placed within reach of the clutches of justice, and be sacrificed to the injured laws of their country. Wild led lives, so to speak; amongst ruffians, and the other as a man of consequence, with laced clothes and a sword, before the public eye; and the latter life was as unlike the former as any lives could well be.

He professed, in public, to be the most zealous of thief-takers; and to ordinary observation his life and strength seemed devoted to the pursuit and apprehension of felons. At his trial--for his trial came at last-he had a printed paper handed to the jury, entitled,

A list of Persons discovered, apprehended, and convicted of several robberies on the highway, and also for burglary and housebreaking, and also for returning from transportation, by Jonathan Wild;

In carrying on his trade of blood, Wild, of course, was occasionally turned upon by his betrayed and desperate victim. But, when this happened, his brazen-faced effrontery carried everything before it. In a trial, for example, of unfortunate wretches indicted for several robberies in , he gave the following account of his proceedings :--

Some coming (I suppose from the prosecutors) to me about the robbery, I made it my business to search after the prisoners, for I had heard that they used to rob about Hampstead; and I went about it the more willingly, because I had heard they had threatened to shoot me through the head. I offered

£ 10

a head for any person who would discover them; upon which a woman came and told me that the prisoners had been with her husband, to entice him to turn out with them; and if I would promise he should come and go safely he would give me some intelligence. I gave her my promise; and her husband came accordingly, and told me that Levee and Blake,

two

of the party, were at that time cleaning their pistols at a house in

Fetter Lane

. I went thither and seized them both.

all,

exclaimed against Jonathan Wild;

But, in all fairness to Jonathan, it must be said that he did not, till the last moment, desert his friends, and that he only sacrificed them for the general good of the concern, and from a bold and comprehensive view of the true policy of trade. Blueskin's turn to be tried, convicted, and hanged, came about a couple of years after the affair just mentioned. Wild was to have been a witness against him; but a day or before the trial, when he went to pay a visit to his intended victim, Blueskin drew out a clasp-knife, and, in a twinkling, fell upon Jonathan, and cut his throat. The blade was too blunt, however, and the thief-taker received no lasting damage. When the verdict was given, Blueskin addressed the court, and told them of an exceedingly kindly promise his late partner had made him.

On Wednesday last, Jonathan Wild said to Simon Jacobs (another prisoner soon after transported),

I believe-you will not bring £ 40 this time; I wish Joe (meaning me) was in your case; but I'll do my endeavour to bring you off as a single felon

And then, turning to me, he said,

I believe you must die; I'll send you a good book

Ticket for Wild's Execution

or

two

, and provide you a coffin, and you shall not be anatomised!

The reward of , it has been explained, which Wild could not manage to make Jacobs bring

this time,

We come now to the end of Wild's career. He was committed to Newgate on the , on a charge of having assisted a criminal in his escape from prison. In the course of a few days he moved to be either admitted to bail or discharged, but a warrant of detainer was produced against him in court, the of several articles of information affixed to the warrant being,

That for many years past he had been a confederate with great numbers of highwaymen, pickpockets, housebreakers, shoplifters, and other thieves;

he had often sold human blood by procuring false evidence to swear persons into facts of which they were not guilty.

[extra_illustrations.2.475.1]  arch-villain made rather a pitiable exit from this world. At the foot of the gallows he remained so long drowsy in the cart, that the mob called out to the hangman that they would knock him on the head if the hanging was not at once proceeded with. The amiable Jonathan had wives. His eldest son, soon after his father's execution, sold himself for a servant to the plantations. A skull claiming to be the great thief-taker's was exhibited, some years ago, in , but as it was not fractured in several places, it was probably spurious. Wild boasted in prison of the numerous robbers he had captured, and the wounds he had received

[extra_illustrations.2.475.2]  skeleton, says Mr. Timbs, in , was some years since in the possession of a surgeon at Windsor. And a relic of him was judged of sufficient interest to be exhibited to the Society of Antiquaries in . It was a musketoon given by Jonathan Wild to Blueskin, which had fallen into the hands of the well-known magis. trate, Sir John Fielding, and by him had been given to his half-brother, Henry Fielding.

In a curious letter was found in the Town Clerk's Office of the city of London, from Jonathan

[extra_illustrations.2.476.1]  Wild, asking for remuneration for services he had rendered to the cause of justice. In the same letter, written in , he also prayed the Lord Mayor and the Court of Aldermen

to be pleased to admit him into the freedom of this honourable city,

In the stood Sydney House, occupied, in the time of Pennant, by a coachmaker. Once it was the proud mansion of the Sydneys. They occupied it till their removal to Leicester House, at the north-east corner of .

The names of several eminent personsalto- gether independent of the

Old Bailey

Sessions House

nourrice of antiquitie,

Peter Bales, the celebrated penman of the time of Queen Elizabeth, kept a writing-school, in , at the upper end of the , and published his here. In a writing competition he once won a golden pen, of the value of , and in addition had the

arms of caligraphy-viz., azure, a pen or-given him as a prize.

Curiosities of Literature,

a rare piece of work brought to pass by Peter Bales, an Englishman, and a clerk of the Chancery,

in an English walnut no bigger than a hen's egg. The nut,

holdeth the book. There are as many leaves in his little book as the great bible; and he hath written as much in

one

of his little leaves as--in a great leaf of the bible.

seen by thousands.

Prynne's

Histrio-Mastix, the Player's Scourge,

for Michael Sparke, and sold at the

Blue bible,

in Green Arbour, in Little

Old Bailey

,

1633

.

of the courts leading out of the was , which ran from the upper end of the street into . Here were the famous Breakneck Steps referred to by Ward in his when he speaks of

returning down-stairs with as much care and caution of tumbling head foremost as he that goes down

Green Arbour Court

steps in the middle of winter.

With part of the money,

received from Hamilton

he moved into fresh lodgings; took unrivalled possession of a fresh garret, on a

first

floor. The house was No.

12

,

Green Arbour Court

,

Fleet Street

, between the

Old Bailey

and the site of Fleet Market; and stood in the right-hand corner of the court, as the wayfarer approached it from

Farringdon Street

by the appropriate access of

Breakneck Steps.

Green Arbour Court

is now gone for ever, and of its miserable wretchedness, for little time replaced by the more decent comforts of a stable, not a vestige remains. The houses, crumbling and tumbling in Goldsmith's day, were fairly rotten down some

nineteen

years since

and it became necessary, for safety sake, to remove what time had spared. But Mr. Washington Irving saw them

first

, and with reverence had described them for Goldsmith's sake. Through alleys, courts, and blind passages traversing Fleet Market, and thence turning along a narrow street to the bottom of a long steep flight of stone steps, he made good his toilsome way up into

Green Arbour Court

. He found it a small square of tall and miserable houses; the very intestines of which seemed turned inside out, to judge from the old garments and frippery that fluttered from every window.

It appeared,

he says, in his

Tales of a Traveller,

to be a region of washerwomen, and lines were stretched about the little square, on which clothes were dangling to dry.

The disputed right to a washtub was going on when he entered; heads in mob-caps were protruded from every window; and the loud clatter of vulgar tongues was assisted by the shrill pipe of swarming children, nestled and cradled in every procreant chamber of the hive. The whole scene, in short, was

one

of whose unchanged resemblance to the scenes of former days I have since found curious corroboration in a. magazine engraving of the place nigh half a century old.

See the frontispiece to vol. xliii of the European Magazine.

Here were the tall faded houses, with heads out of window at every storey; the dirty neglected children; the bawling slipshod women; in

one

corner, clothes hanging to dry, and in another the cure of smoky chimneys announced Without question, the same squalid squalling colony as it then was, it had been in Goldsmith's time. He would compromise with the children for occasional cessation of their noise, by occasional cakes or sweetmeats, or by a tune upon his flute, for which all the court assembled; he would talk pleasantly with the poorest of his neighbours, and was long recollected to have greatly enjoyed the talk of a working watchmaker in the court. Every night he would risk his neck at those steep stone stairs; every day--for his clothes had become too ragged to submit to daylight scrutiny-he would keep within his dirty, naked, unfurnished room, with its single wooden chair and window bench. And that was Goldsmith's home.

It was in this lodging that the poet received a visit from Percy, then busily engaged in collecting material for his famous The graye church dignitary discovered Goldsmith in his wretched room busily writing. There being but chair it was, out of civility, offered to the visitor, and Goldsmith was himself obliged to sit in the window. Whilst the were sitting talking together- Percy relates in his memoir--some was heard to rap gently at the door, and being desired to come in, a poor ragged little girl of very decent behaviour entered, who, dropping a curtsey, said,

My mamma sends her compliments, and begs the favour of you to lend her a pot-full of coals.

[extra_illustrations.2.462.2] Old Sessions House

[extra_illustrations.2.464.1] Trial in Old Bailey

[extra_illustrations.2.464.2] Central Criminal Court

[extra_illustrations.2.469.1] Central Criminal Court

[extra_illustrations.2.471.1] Pillory near London Bridge

[extra_illustrations.2.472.1] At what used to be No. 68 of the Old Bailey

[extra_illustrations.2.475.1] Led to Execution

[extra_illustrations.2.475.2] Jonathan Wild's

[extra_illustrations.2.476.1] Westminster Magazine in old Bailey