London, Volume 4
Knight, Charles
1843
XCIV.-The Old Bailey.
XCIV.-The Old Bailey.
| of the most essential of the reforms so long demanded by our eminent lawreformers-speedy --has certainly been obtained at last at the Court which forms the subject of the present paper. Whilst justice through the country generally continues to hold the even tenor of its way-sitting in due course, at long intervals, to try prisoners, many of whom, even if guilty, may have already suffered a greater punishment than their crimes deserved, and if innocent, have endured irreparable wrong and misery,--whilst thus justice, in mockery of its own name, moves sluggishly on out of London, we find in London a striking contrast. may pass many times through the without discovering that the greatest of English criminal courts is ever shut. Month after month invariably presents the same scene,--the narrow street, covered with straw to deaden the noise of the vehicles (till the recent introduction of the wooden pavement), having on the side the solid granite walls of Newgate, divided only | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
290 | from the lofty building (with that gigantic ventilator on the top) containing the famous courts of justice, by the open area through which prisoners pass from confinement in the former to their trial in the latter, and on the other side, waggon-yards, public-houses, and eating-houses, filled with a heterogeneous assemblage similar to that in the street before us. Merchants and professional men, fretting at the-loss of their valuable time and the uncertainty of the period when they may be wanted; country farmers looking anxious and puzzled, and gaping rustics appearing even more foolish than ever; small tradesmen, whose Sunday's coats are evidently donned for the occasion, and the many varieties of that extensive and peculiarly London genus, the costermonger, who, acting on the poet's precept, &c., pay as little respect to dress as to many other social conventionalisms; these, with a plentiful admixture of policemen in their neat blue clothes; females, chiefly of the poorer classes; thieves of every gradation, from the member of the aristocratic swell mob down to the area sneak, curious to know how matters are going with their friends and associates, and with a small spice of curiosity as to any little revelations that may come out affecting themselves; and, lastly, the frequent apparition of a bustling, sharpfaced attorney, of notoriety, gliding like an eel through the press, or of that much more imposing-looking member of the law who delights in flowing gown and powdered wig, the barrister: such are the ordinary staple of an crowd on court days. And how much insight into men may not derive here from half an hour's silent but attentive examination! Mark the meeting of that policeman and that dashing youth with the long-flowing hair, the fashionable loose coat, so carefully velveted-collar, wrists, and pocketholes-and the large diamond in his gay stock; see how exactly they understand each other in that exchange of most significant glances: the face of the a little flushed, but gay and assured--the policeman knows him, but has just now no case against him; and of the other-quiet, penetrative, and full of meaning: and so for the present they part. Look again at that group of miserable women surrounding who is passionately telling, for the time, the story of her boy apprehended and condemned, to her surprise and horror, for some petty felony, and who, she now declares, in a voice almost choked with emotion, is sure to leave his prison at the twelvemonth's end a confirmed thief. In the corner there, apart from the crowd, you may read a history in the attitude, gestures, and faces of those men; it is a prosecutor and his chief witness preparing for the crucifying cross-examination which they well know awaits them. Move a few yards and it is a fair chance you meet with the fellow of the picture --witnesses fortifying themselves to swear very hard for the defence: yet with their courage oozing out, not, like Acres', at the fingers' ends only, but at every pore of their body, as they think of that unpleasant feature of the law, prosecutions for perjury: group more and we have done. See where, opposite the entrance into the chief court, a body of policemen are handing out of a coach a tottering, most venerable-looking old man, with his silver hair falling about his shoulders. What does he here? Why at such a period of life is he brought from the quiet privacy of his fire-side in a remote agricultural county? Alas! he comes to-day to find a long-lost brother | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
291 | in the felon's dock, and to mitigate, if he can, his punishment by speaking as to his former character. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Frequent, however, as are the trials at the , there is a pause. Justice, probably, must nod sometimes, and therefore it is as well to provide for fitting repose elsewhere than on the judgment-seat. The sittings of the Central Criminal Court are held monthly, but as the whole of the month is not occupied in the trial of the list of prisoners on the calendar, the spare time forms a vacation, and such are the only vacations at the . In consequence, trials frequently take place which illustrate with a kind of practical epigrammatic force the advantages of that speedy justice to which we have referred; such, for instance, as the apprehension of a prisoner for theft day, his committal by a magistrate on the , and his trial, conviction, and sentence at the on the or the . This state of things dates from , when the Act was passed for the establishment of a Central Criminal Court, for the trial of offences in the City of London, the County of Middlesex, and those parts of the adjoining counties which lie within a certain distance of the metropolis: Woodford, in Essex; Woolwich, in Kent; and Richmond, in Surrey, are all within the jurisdiction of the . It will thus be seen that no inconsiderable portion of the entire population of England enjoys the benefit it has conferred. Under the general title-Central Criminal Court, are joined courts of trial, both sitting at the same time for the greater despatch of business, the the scene of most of the events which readers of the Newgate Calendar delight in, as well as of events which give a deeper and purer interest to the history of the ; whilst the other, called the , has been used only of recent years. Crimes of every kind, from treason down to the pettiest larceny, are tried by the tribunal in question; even offences committed on the high seas, formerly tried at special sessions by the judges of the Admiralty Court, are now submitted to its judgment. The judges of the Central Criminal Court are, the Lord Mayor, the Lord Chancellor (such is the order in the Act), the judges, the aldermen, Recorder, and Common Serjeant of London, and such others as the sovereign may please to appoint by way of assistants. Of these, the Recorder and the Common Serjeant are, in reality, the presiding judges at an immense proportion of the cases brought hither for trial, a judge of the law only assisting occasionally-when, for instance, unusual points of law are involved, or when conviction affects the life of the prisoner. As to the juries, they are summoned indiscriminately from London, and from the neighbouring counties over which the sphere of the Court extends. Let us now take a glance at the interior. The Old Court will be, in every point of view, the most interesting, that being the to which the well-known words were so long exclusively applied. The name, we may observe in passing, is supposed, according to Maitland, to be [n.291.1] whilst, in the (article ), we find the phrase derived from the Ballium, or outer walled court, supposed to have existed here in connection with the old city wall, which ran along at the back of | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
292 | the present street, where traces of it are yet to be found. To which source we are to attribute the name, therefore, is unknown, both being so likely; but it is highly probable there was a ballium at this part of the wall, and that that was also used from a very early period as a place of trial: at all events the judicial sittingshere are of such antiquity, that we have lost all records of their commencement. 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 through a long passage into a corridor at the back of the court, with doors opening into the latter, by 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 sentiment is of disappointment. The great moral power and pre-eminence of the Court makes , however idly or 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 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, , 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 -
the double line of reporters occupying the 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-Lord Mayor reading the newspaper of the day. But we forget: 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? naturally asks; when, looking more attentively, we perceive, for the | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
293 | time, beyond the representative of civic majesty, which thus asserts its rights, some writing, taking frequent but brief glances at the prisoners or the witnesses, but never turning his head in any other direction, speaking to no on the bench, unspoken to--that is a judge of the land, quietly doing the whole business of the court. We are fortunate: there must be some case of more than ordinary import. As we listen, and begin to understand what passes, we find that it is which, whilst in a legal sense it is of little general interest, in other points may well deserve attention. And not only is there a judge of the land on the bench, but we perceive the Attorney-General among the counsel conducting the prosecution. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The prisoners at the bar are an aged widow, her son, her son-in-law, and other persons. The charge against them is thus stated by the Attorney-General. The mother of the widow some years since left , the interest of which the latter was to receive during her life, and the principal to be divided at her death among her children. Some little time since the mother and her children desired, for purposes of business, to draw out some portion of the capital, which could only be done by all the parties joining in a petition to the Court of Chancery. of the sons, however, had gone to sea, and had not been heard of for many years. Under these circumstances the son-in-law, anxious for his wife's share, and no doubt in concert with the others, unfortunately allowed himself to be tempted by the idea of getting some to personate the missing son. This was done, the petition signed and presented, the money obtained. Now it does seem most probable, from the circumstances stated even by the prosecutor himself, that these misguided persons intended no injury to any by their deception; they may have felt sure the absent man was dead, in which case his share became theirs, and if he were not, enough money remained in Chancery to pay him all that he would be entitled to, on proving that he had not joined in the former petition; at the same time the apparent and possible effect was a fraud upon the Court of Chancery. The mode in which the court obtained cognizance of the case is of the most curious parts of the trial, and suggests still greater excuses for the prisoners. As the trial proceeds we learn that the solicitor, a gentleman of high respectability, through whom the application to Chancery was made, occasionally employed as clerk a man who had been a hosier. He, it appears, had frequent interviews with the more active of the prisoners (the son-in-law and the stranger confederates), and acknowledged in his cross-examination that he that there was a personation-- yet said nothing to any . This same person further acknowledges that, having determined to write to the proper parties to give information, he called on of the prisoners or days before he did so write, sat down and drank with him for hours, and that when he left him he called upon another. Such was the case. For the widow's son it was pointed out by counsel that he had never been concerned in any way in the affair, further than being present when the personation took place on the receipt of the money, and that although he did not, for his mother's sake, interfere, he had a right to be there to receive his own unquestioned share; whilst for all the prisoners it was alleged that they had been inveigled, without evil intention, into a criminal act, by the chief witness, the | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
294 | hosier-clerk, who had only informed against them on their refusing to submit to his extortionate demands for money. This is the compassionate view of the case. The jury, with scarcely a moment's hesitation, found the whole guilty. What a terrible moment to a prisoner must the pause after such an announcement be! Look to the dock, there is a slight commotion- of the prisoners faints and falls. It is the widow's son. Sobbing and wringing her hands, the wretched woman assists her companions in raising him, when the court suddenly rings again with the exclamation,
A female cry now bursts fromn the gallery over head, followed by the dull, heavy sound of a fall: that is the son's wife. But let us close the scene. The sentence subsequently pronounced was transportation against the sof-in-law and the personator, and imprisonment against the others. We had forgot to add, among the other noticeable features of the trial, that the principal witnesses against the man who personated the absent son were his own brothers. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Whilst the crier, with sepulchral voice, is calling for the silence which he the most disturbs, our thoughts, reverting to the past, people the dock in rapid succession with the shades of some few of the chief persons who have stood there:--Fauntleroy (); the Cato Street conspirators (); poor Eliza Fenning (), universally believed to be innocent of the crime for which she suffered; Bellingham, the assassin of the statesman Perceval (); Dr. Dodd (); Elizabeth Canning, a case of inexplicable mystery (); the poet Savage (); Jonathan Wild (); Jack Sheppard (); the infamous Colonel Francis Charteris, on whom was written the famous epitaph commencing Although our space will not admit either of our extending the list, or dwelling upon the trials generally of those we have mentioned, we must make an exception in favour of the hero of so many poems and pantomimes, sermons and satires, farces and farcical essays, in his own day, and who has lately been revived for the similar edification of ours;--what novelist or dramatist but anticipates the name Jack Sheppard? On looking over the by the we find the following story, told to the clerical functionary by a friend in the following :[n.294.1] -- says he, Surely the accomplished author of was unaware how completely his object had been previously achieved in this eloquent passage, which leaves nothing to be desired, either as to the pointingof the moral or the adorning of the tale. An incidental passage in the history of the may here be mentioned. During the sessions of , the gaol fever raged so violently in the neighbouring prison, that the effluvia entering the Court were so powerful as to cause the death of Baron Clark, Sir Thomas Abney, Judge of the Common Pleas, and Pennant's Sir Samuel Pennant, the Lord Mayor, in addition to various members of the bar, and of--the jury and other persons. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
It is painful to reflect that any circumstances should bring into the place chiefly notorious for its connection with men of the Sheppard stamp, the actors in the terrible but elevated and noble war of principles which have made the century of the most momentous in English history; yet thus it was: at the Old Baileywere tried, in , immediately after the Restoration, such of Charles I.'s judges as were alive, and, confiding in the promised bill of indemnity, remained in England; and, a quarter of a century later, in the same reign, the nobleman whose name has become as a household word with English patriotsin connection with his illustrious friend Sidney-Lord William Russell. --The trial of the commenced on the , before commissioners, among whom were the Chancellor Clarendon, Monk Duke of Albemarle, and several other noblemen, the Lord Chief Baron, and several other judges, every of them men who had been engaged in the mighty struggle, which had for the time so completely overwhelmed them, but who now, by a new turn of fortune, were to sit in judgment upon their former opponents. Nay, several of them had actually been engaged on the same side as the prisoners at the bar, after actual. war had broken out. Such were Mr. Denzil | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
296 | Hollis; the Earl of Manchester, whose name is so frequently met with as an active parliamentary general in the civil war; Mr. Annesley, a member of the Parliament itself; Lord Saye and Sele; and Sir Anthony Cooper, afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury, both determined opponents of Charles. Above all, Monk himself, the restorer, had been released from prison by the party to which the prisoners belonged, and employed by Cromwell in the most important matters. The very appearance of such men against such men, told what was to come. After overleaping that difficulty any others would be light. The prisoners were in number, and included Sir Hardress Waller, Major-General Harrison, Colonel Carew, Cook, Hugh Peters, Scott, Harry Marten, Hacker, and Scroop, among other scarcely less noticeable names. Waller was called, who pleaded guilty, and thus escaped the scaffold. The next was Harrison; and surely no Englishman, whether he may condemn or applaud the political act for which he was brought to the bar, can read his address to the court without deep sympathy and admiration for the high principle and courage of the man. said he, calmly, --Here he was interrupted; but the interruption spoke even more significantly than the words he was debarred from utterance. When he was allowed to go on, he said- To rightly estimate the heart and mind of the speaker during the utterance of these memorable words, we must not forget that he knew that every sentence took him in all probability a step nearer that frightful death, of which the executioner by his side, [n.296.1] in his hand, was a significant symbol. He was sentenced to death, | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
297 | and retired saying he had no reason to be ashamed of the cause in which he had been engaged. Colonel Carew exhibited equal enthusiasm and courage, and fought with still greater pertinacity when interrupted, as he was continually. At last he said, and so listened in quiet to the bloody sentence. Colonel Scroop, who had surrendered under the King's proclamation commanding all persons concerned directly or indirectly in the late King's trial to surrender themselves within days, and had in consequence received the King's pardon, was now convicted and sentenced, for having subsequently said to Major- General Brown, in a private conversation, that there would still be a difference of opinion among men touching the execution of the late King. Harry Marten defended himself essentially in the same spirit as Harrison and Carew, but made even still clearer the violation of all law in the legal proceedings then carrying on against him and his companions. The Solicitor-General having said, Marten replied, But he must have been something more than human who could have convinced the jury and judges of that day. Marten also was condemned. Among the other prisoners, , we can only briefly refer to the cases of Cook and Hugh Peters. Cook was the lawyer who had conducted the prosecution. As he himself observed, he had neither been accuser, witness, jury, judge, nor executioner, but simply counsel; placed in his post bya public order, and could not be said to have acted maliciously, or with a wicked intention, as set forth. Further, that, if it were accounted treason in counsel to plead against the King, it must also be felony to plead against any man that might be unjustly condemned for felony. Cook was not only sentenced, but it was decided that he should be the to suffer. But, perhaps, the case above all others that shows the animus of the prosecution and the judges--the utter absence of any high guiding principle | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
298 | --is that of Hugh Peters, the preacher, who was not of the King's judges, but merely, like some of those who sat on the bench before him, an active, but not, like them, a time-serving partisan of the Commonwealth. The executions began on the , and ended for the time on the , the fate of the who had suffered in the interim having, there is no doubt, produced an effect that seriously alarmed the more prudent royalists. says Burnet, And no wonder; for, from the victim to the last, these men (on the abstract character of whose acts we desire to express no opinion) exhibited, in their endurance of the sufferings those acts brought upon them, a heroism which in no age nor country has been surpassed. Harrison, and not Cook, was the . As he was drawn along towards the place of execution, at (so as to be within sight of , where Charles had been executed), some called out in the crowd,
said Harrison, smiling, and placing his hand upon his heart; We scarcely dare to shock our readers with the details of the scene on the scaffold, even although it be a scene that Charles II., the merry, good-natured monarch, stood to look on. The brave enthusiast was cut down from the gallows alive, his bowels torn out and thrown into the fire, and the body then quartered. days after Carew underwent the same fate, saying that, if what he had done were to do again, he would do it. Cook and Hugh Peters were brought out on the , and was placed in Cook's hurdle, with the uncovered face turned towards him. As for Peters, the devilish ingenuity of his executioners had devised even a still more awful enhancement of the punishment that awaited him. He was placed within the rails of the scaffold, whilst the whole of the revolting barbarities already described were performed on Cook. It is enough to make shudder to think that could witness, much less perform, or cause to be performed, such atrocities. It is strange, but undeniable, that the only gentleness, or sense of humanity, that these proceedings ever exhibit, comes from or other of the sufferers by them. Thus Peters, perhaps formerly the most violent of Commonwealth-men, seems, on this day, to have completely changed his character. Whilst prepared to endure the double torture allotted him, with such courage and constancy, that he should die at last with a smile upon his face, the spirit of his great Master, in all its meekness and gentleness, was evidently at work with equal vigour. To a man who upbraided him in opprobrious words with the King's death, he said, Another incident is exquisitely touching and beautiful. On the way to the scaffold he had espied an acquaintance, who being permitted to come to the hurdle, Peters took a piece of gold, bent it, and gave it to him, desiring him to go where his dear daughter lodged, and carry that piece of gold as a token, letting her know that his heart was as full of comfort as it could be; and that, before that piece should come to her hands, he should be with God in glory. Colonel Scott suffered on the last day but of the executions, and, although prevented by repeated interruptions from speaking freely to the people as the others had done, yet succeeded in making that policy as untenable as the | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
299 | former. said he, as he resigned himself at last to silence and the executioner, On the following day these ghastly scenes suddenly terminated. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
years later () occurred trials, of which at least had a close political connection with those we have described. The history of the Ryehouse Plot is so involved in obscurity, that it is impossible to tell with any certainty what were the exact objects of those concerned, or supposed to be concerned, in it. We know that the Duke of Monmouth, the Earl of Shaftesbury, the Earl of Essex, Lord Russell, and Algernon Sidney, were all opposed to the government, [n.299.1] what, then, must the others have aimed at? Sidney's last words give a sufficiently decisive answer. He who had fought the battles of the Commonwealth with Harrison and the others, who had sat as of the King's judges, had subsequently gloried in having so acted, thus wrote in a paper which he delivered to the Sheriff before his execution (the passage forms the conclusion of a prayer) :-- But it is with the trial of his frienid Lord William Russell, arrested at the same time, and on the same grounds, that we have now to speak. This trial commenced on the . As in the case of Harrison and his associates, there is no doubt the jury was packed by the Sheriffs. Russell was charged with conspiring the death of the King, and consulting how to levy war against him. Having desired the postponement of the trial unto the afternoon merely, on account of the non-arrival of some witnesses from the country, and on account of some mistake that had been made in the list of the jury, the Attorney-General, Sir Robert Sawyer, corruptly assuming his guilt as already proved, answered in this brutal manner: Having obtained pens, ink, and paper, and permission to use certain papers he had brought with him, the prisoner, desiring to have notes of what might pass, asked if he might have assistance. said Sir Robert; and Chief Justice Pemberton added,
was the answer, Well may those who were present say a thrill of anguish ran through the assembly when they beheld the prisoner's wife, the daughter of the estimable Earl of Southampton, rise to assist in such a scene. The evidence adduced was not only contradictory in many points, but utterly insufficient. Still there seems no doubt that Lord Russell had attended a meeting where a general rising was spoken of, and the feasibility of seizing the King's guards discussed; but it was not shown that he had approved of either scheme, much less that they had been determined upon. The incident already mentioned was not the only by which this trial was to be signally commemorated. Whilst the principal witness against Russell, the infamous Lord Howard, whose conduct on the occasion in turning against his | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
300 | associate to save his own life is said to have been the least exceptionable part of his history, was speaking, it was observed that his voice at a certain period began to falter, and the jury said they could not hear him. said he, in answer, The news, indeed, had but just reached the Court of the suicide of that nobleman in the Tower, who lay there under the same charge as Russell and Sidney, of whom he was a mutual friend. Who would suppose that the lawyers for the prosecution could be capable of turning such an event to the prejudice of the prisoner? observed Sir Robert Sawyer, Evelyn expressly says this news was Lord Russell was found guilty and sentenced to death. He was executed in . On his way he passed the paternal home of his admirable wife, Southampton House, and the tears were seen to start to his eyes. He died with perfect fortitude. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Quitting the court, and noticing, as we walk along the corridor, the various conveniences for the judges, sheriffs, and others, as robing-rooms and rooms for refreshment, we are reminded of a custom thus described in an amusing passage in the for :-- If such a fiat did go forth, it must have been recalled very speedily, for the dinners yet flourish. Probably the time when their fate hung poised in the balance, and many a civic functionary awaited anxiously to see the result, was the same as that when, owing, we are told, to some remarks about the expense which the Bar thought uncalled for, the pleaders, and other favoured barristers, withdrew in offended dignity, and have never returned. feature of the dinners not mentioned in the above passage is the earliness of the hour at which they break up. Precisely as the clock strikes , the Lord Mayor, who presides, remarks, apologetically, --or some such words; and the hint is immediately acted upon. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Returning into the area before mentioned, additional horrors of the old criminal law throng upon the recollection, in connection with the name of the spot, the To many of our readers the meaning of these words | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
301 | will be unknown. The advancing spirit of civilisation has swept away the fearful custom that gave the appellation, along with the torture, the browbeating of witnesses, twisting of law into any shape a government might desire, corrupt judges, and packed juries. The custom to which we allude is that of (the strong and hard pain), a torture applied to persons who refused to plead when called upon at the bar, with the view of thereby saving their property, which would be forfeited to the crown on conviction for the crimes charged. Our best legal writers differ as to the origin of this custom, some believing it to have been in use before the reign of Edward I., others that it dates from that reign, when it was declared, in the statute usually known as the Statute of , that For a considerable period the punishment appears to have remained of the character here indicated, being simply imprisonment of a nature; that is, the prisoner was barely kept from perishing of cold and hunger. But a most important alteration had obtained by the reign of Henry IV., when we find from the that the judgment upon persons standing mute, according to the advice of all the judges, was And this was the custom that continued down to the last century, with the mere alteration, from humane motives, of making the weight sufficient to ensure death speedily, the placing a sharp stone or piece of wood under the back with the same view, and the addition of a preliminary process of tying the thumbs with whipcord, in order to compel the culprit to plead without resorting to the more terrible infliction. By the statute Geo. III., it was provided that persons refusing to plead, when arraigned for felony or piracy, should be convicted of the same. of the latest cases of the operation of the old law at the appears to have been in . Previous instances at the same place are very numerous. In , Mary Andrews refusing to plead, had her thumbs tied with whipcord, but remained so firm under the infliction that several cords were broken before she would plead. In the same year Nathaniel Hawes suffered in a similar manner, without giving the slightest evidences of a faltering resolution. In consequence, he was placed under the press, where he bore, for minutes, the weight of bs. before he submitted. But the most interesting case we have met with is the following : | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
In Major Strangeways was placed at the bar charged with the murder of his brother-in-law, Mr. Fussell. The father of Strangeways left him in possession of a farm, an elder sister of the latter being executrix. Here they lived together, it is said, very happily till the sister formed an acquaintance with Fussell, a respectable lawyer. The brother appears to have been from the | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
302 | greatly averse to this connection, and once swore, They parted, and in parting quarrelled about their property. This led to litigation; Fussell, after his marriage with the sister, prosecuting certain suits against Strangeways. day, whilst the former was in London, engaged in this and similar business, he was suddenly struck, where he sat in his lodgings, by bullets, and fell dead. Suspicion fell on Strangeways, who was taken into custody. On the day of the inquest he was conveyed by a guard [n.302.1] This sage expedient having failed, the foreman of the jury proposed that all the gunsmiths' shops in London and the adjacent places should be examined, to see what guns had been lent or sold on the day of the murder. The jury mostly thought this proposition impracticable, and of them, who was a gunmaker, a Mr. Holloway, said decidedly the thing was not to be done from the great number of his profession; adding that he, for , had lent a gun on the day in question, and no doubt many others. Strange to say, that was the very gun with which the murder had been committed, and by its means Strangeways was discovered to be the murderer. Overcome by the extraordinary nature of the proof, he confessed his connexion with the alleged crime. The day of trial was , when, on being asked to plead, he said, Persisting in this resolution, he was sentenced by Lord Chief Justice Glynn to be On the Monday following, at in the forenoon, the sheriffs and other officers came to the Press Yard, whither the miserable prisoner was presently brought. He wore a mourning cloak, beneath which he appeared clothed in white from head to foot. By the sheriffs he was conducted to a dungeon, where, after prayers, This they did at the signal of but, finding the weight He died in about or minutes. The press used on this occasion was of a triangular form, and so constructed as to press upon the breast of the sufferer, about the region of the heart, as the speediest mode of relieving him from his agony. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
In order to furnish some idea of the extent of the business transacted at the , we append a table extracted from the Parliamentary papers published in (no later document of the kind has appeared, we believe), showing the number of prisoners convicted, acquitted, or against whom the bills were ignored, from the years to . The following returns are given from the annual statements published by the governor of Newgate. We may premise that an immense proportion of the cases are larcenies unaccompanied byviolence; in the returns for , for instance (in which year the extended jurisdiction of the Criminal Court came into operation), of the convictions, are for petty larceny.
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304 | smaller number than in many a single year not more than a quarter of a century since. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
To render the view as complete as possible, we give the statement for of the classification of crimes, and of the punishments awarded:--
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Footnotes: [n.291.1] History of London, vol. ii., p. 989. [n.294.1] Vol. i. p. t69. [n.296.1] This seems to have been a new reading, got up for the occasion, of the custom of placing an executioner with an axe by the side of prisoners at the bar for treason. [n.299.1] Penny Cyclopedia, article Sidney. [n.302.1] From a very curious pamphlet printed in the Harleian Miscellany, vol. iv., giving an account of the trial. |
