CHAPTER LIV.
THE OLD BAILEY.
Origin of the Name—The Old Sessions House—Constitution of the Court in Strype's time—The Modern Central Criminal Court—Number of
Persons tried here annually—Old Bailey Holidays—Speedy Justice—A Thief's Defence—The Interior of the Old Court—Celebrated
Criminals tried here—Trial of the Regicides—Trial of Lord William Russell—The Press-yard—The Black Sessions of 1750—Sprigs of Rue
in Court—Old Bailey Dinners—The Gallows in the Old Bailey—The Cart and the New Drop—Execution Statistics—Execution Customs—
Memorable Executions—A Dreadful Catastrophe—The Pillory in the Old Bailey—The Surgeons' Hall—A Fatal Experiment—The
Dissection of Lord Ferrers—Goldsmith as a Rejected Candidate—Famous Inhabitants—The Little Old Bailey—Sydney House—Green
Arbour Court and Breakneck Steps—Goldsmith's Garret—A Region of Washerwomen—Percy's Visit to Goldsmith.
There is some dispute as to the origin of the
name "Old Bailey," for while some think it implies
the Ballium, or outer space beyond the wall, Maitland refers it to Bail Hill, an eminence where the
bail, or bailiff, lived and held his court. Stow
thinks the street was called from some old court
held there, as, in the year 1356, the tenement and
ground upon Houndsditch, between Ludgate on
the south and Newgate on the north, was appointed
to John Cambridge, fishmonger and Chamberlain
of London, "whereby," he says, "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
their sessions in a part thereof now called the
Sessions Hall, both for the City of London and
Shire of Middlesex."
Strype describes the Old Sessions House as a
fair and stately building, very commodious, and
with large galleries on both sides for spectators,
"the court-room," he remarks, "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."
A Court-house was erected here in 1773. It was
destroyed in the "No Popery" Riots of 1780, but
was rebuilt and enlarged in 1809 by the addition
of the site of the old Surgeons' Hall.
THE CHAPEL IN NEWGATE.
The old constitution of this court for malefactors
is given by "R. B.," in Strype (v. 384). "It," he
says, "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."
JACK SHEPPARD'S ESCAPES.
1. Handcuffs and Feetlocks, and Padlock to Ground.
2. Cell over the Castle, Jack Sheppard fastened to the floor. Climbing up the
Chimney, where he found a bar of iron.
3. Red Room over the Castle, into which he got out of the Chimnoy.
4. Door of the
Red Room, the lock of which he burst open.
5. Door of the Entry between the Red Room and the Chapel.
6. Door going into the Chapel, which he burst open.
7. Door going out of the Chapel towards the Leads.
8. Door with a Spring 'Lock, which he opened.
9. Door over the same Passage.
10. The Lower Leads.
11. The Higher Leads, the walls of which he
got over, and descended by the staircase off the roof of a turner's house into the street.
Under the general title, "The Central Criminal
Court," are joined both what are called the Old
Court and the New. The former deals with the
more weighty cases—those of deepest dye—and has
echoed, without doubt, to more tales of the romance
of crime than any other building in the kingdom.
"The judges of the Central Criminal Court,"
says Mr. Timbs (1868), "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
4 and 5 Will. IV., c. 36.
As to the number of persons who are brought
here into public notice, Mr. Sheriff Laurie, writing
to the Times of November 28th, 1845, 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 Old Bailey 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 Central
Criminal Court 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 Old Bailey. 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," says Fielding, writing of the increase
of robbers, "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 one, has been described
in a lively manner by a writer in Knight's "Cyclopædia of London" (1851). "Passing," he says,
"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." The court formerly sat at the early hour
of 7 a.m.
In 1841, both the Old Court and the New Court
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, fifteen feet in diameter, weighing two tons, and the point of the arrow of the
guiding vane weighing 150 pounds. The subterrannean air-tunnels pass through a portion of the
old City wall.
It was at the Old Bailey, in 1727, that Richard
Savage, the dissolute poet, for whom Dr. Johnson
seems to have felt an affection, was tried. The
poet was out, one night, drinking and rioting with
two gentlemen named Merchant and Gregory, when
they agreed to turn in at "Robinson's" Coffee
House, near Charing Cross. Merchant, demanding
a room in a bullying way, was told there was a fire
ready-made in the next partition, where the company were about to leave. The three men at once
rushed in, and placed themselves between the fire
and the persons who were there, and kicked down
a table. A fight ensued, and Savage ran a Mr.
James Sinclair through the body. He also wounded
a servant-girl who tried to hold him, and broke his
way out of the house. He was taken, however, in
a back court, where some soldiers had come to his
assistance. The next morning the three revellers
were carried before the justices, who sent them
to the Gate House, and on the death of Mr. Sinclair they were removed to Newgate. They were
not, however, chained, and were placed apart from
the vulgar herd in the press-yard. It was proved
that the fatal stab was given by Savage, and he was
consequently found guilty of murder. It is said
that his supposed mother, the Countess of Macclesfield, did all she could to bring Savage to the
gallows; but the Countess of Hertford, Lord
Tyrconnel, and Mrs. Oldfield, the actress, obtained for him at last the king's pardon.
Among other celebrated criminals who have
been tried at the Old Bailey and Central Criminal
Courts, may be briefly mentioned the following:—
Major Strangways, the assassin, in 1659; Colonel
Turner and his family, for burglary in Lime Street,
1663; Green, Berry, and Hill, for the murder of
Sir Edmundbury Godfrey, 1678; Count Koningsmark and three others for the assassination of Mr.
Thynne, 1681; Rowland Walters and others, for
the murder of Sir Charles Pym, Bart., 1688; Harrison, for the murder of Dr. Clenche, 1692; Beau
Fielding, for bigamy, 1706; Richard Thornhill,
Esq., for killing Sir Cholmeley Deering in a duel,
1711; the Marquis di Paleotti, for the murder of
his servant in Lisle Street, 1718; Major Oneby,
for killing in a duel, 1718 and 1726; Jonathan
Wild, the thief-taker, 1725; the infamous Colonel
Charteris, 1730; Elizabeth Canning, an inexplicable mystery, 1753; Baretti, for stabbing, 1769;
the two Perraus, for forgery, 1776; the Rev.
Mr. Hackman, for shooting Miss Reay, 1779;
Ryland, the engraver, for forgery, 1783; Barrington, the pickpocket, 1790; Renwick Williams,
for stabbing, 1790; Theodore Gardelle, for murder,
1790; Hadfield, for shooting at George III., 1800;
Captain Macnamara, for killing Colonel Montgomery in a duel, 1803; Aslett, the Bank clerk, for
forgery on the Bank to the extent of £320,000,
1803; Holloway and Haggerty, for murder, 1807;
Bellingham, the assassin of Mr. Spencer Percival,
1812; Cashman, the sailor, for riot on Snow Hill
(where he was hanged), 1817; Richard Carlile, for
blasphemy, 1819 and 1831; St. John Long, the
counter-irritation surgeon, for manslaughter, 1830
and 1831; Bishop and Williams, for murder by
"burking," 1831; Greenacre, for murder, 1837; G.
Oxford, for shooting at the Queen, 1840; Blakesley,
for murder in Eastcheap, 1841; Beaumont Smith,
for forgery of Exchequer bills, 1841; J. Francis, for
an attempt to shoot the Queen, 1842; McNaughten,
who shot Mr. Drummond in mistake for Sir R.
Peel, 1843; Dalmas, for murder on Battersea
Bridge, 1844; Barber, Fletcher, &c., for will-forgeries, 1844; Manning and his wife, for murder,
1849; Palmer, the Rugeley poisoner, whose trial
lasted a fortnight, 1856; and seven pirates, convicted of murder on the high seas, within the jurisdiction of the Admiralty of England, 1864.
But besides those criminals, outcasts of society,
and notorious for their evil deeds, the Old Bailey
has disposed of another class, distinguished by
their noble and elevated principles, and famed for
their patriotism. Here were tried, in 1660, 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 twenty-three 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
9th of October, 1660, before a court of thirty-four
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, one
would think, from motives of delicacy, would have
withheld from the tribunal. The prisoners were
twenty-nine 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 first 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," said he, "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."
His boldness could not save him; he was sentenced to death, and retired saying he had no
reason to be ashamed of the cause in which he
had been engaged. Colonel Carew's frame of
mind was in tune with that of Harrison, and he
also was condemned to death. Harry Marten
began a most ingenious and persevering defence by
taking exception to the indictment. He declared
he was not even mentioned in it! It certainly
included a name, Henry Marten, but that was not
his—his was Harry Marten. This was overruled,
and the trial proceeded. The Solicitor-General
having said, "I am sorry to see in you so little
repentance," Marten replied, "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." He then went on to plead that the
statute of Henry VIII. exempted from high treason
any one acting under a king de facto, though he
should not be a king de jure. No arguments
would move the Old Bailey judge and jury of that
day. Marten also was condemned. As for the
other prisoners, all of them were found guilty, but
those who had surrendered themselves voluntarily
were, with one exception, that of Scroop, respited.
Ten were executed. All, it has been remarked,
died with the constancy of martyrs, and it is to be
observed that not a single man of those who had a
share in the death of the late king seems to have
voluntarily repented of the deed.
It was at the trial of the regicides that the
ridiculous story was first 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 Old Bailey on the 13th of July, 1683. 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
till the afternoon, on account of an error in the
list of the jury, and of the non-arrival of some
witnesses from the country. The Attorney-General,
Sir Robert Sawyer, corruptly assuming his guilt as
already proven, answered harshly, "You would not
have given the king an hour's notice for saving his
life; the trial must proceed." Desiring to take
notes of the evidence, the prisoner asked if he
might have assistance. "Yes, a servant," said Sir
Robert D. Pemberton, Chief Justice of the Common
Pleas, who presided, adding, "any of your servants
shall assist you in writing anything you please for
you." "My lord," was the answer, "my wife is
here to do it." No wonder that a thrill ran through
the crowd of spectators when they saw the daughter
of the excellent and popular Lord Southampton
thus bravely aiding her husband in his defence!
The incident was not likely to be forgotten, and
both painters and poets have long delighted to
dwell on the image
"Of that sweet saint who sat by Russell's side."
Every one knows how the trial ended, and how
the unfortunate but noble-minded Russell was, on
the 21st of July, executed in Lincoln's Inn Fields.
The Press-Yard at the Old Bailey still, by its
name, commemorates one 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
peine forte et dure was used. The most celebrated
case of the application of this torture was in 1659,
when Major Strangways endured it, to save his
estate. He and his elder sister had shared a farm
peacefully enough, till 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. One 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,"
but the weight being too light to produce instant
death, those present stood on the board, as a
ghastly and last act of friendship. The poor fellow
bore this some eight or ten minutes.
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
1721, Mary Andrews was tortured thus. The first
three whipcords broke, but she gave way with
the fourth. The same year (for the press was still
partially continued) the cord was tried first on a
criminal named Nathaniel Hawes, who then was
pressed under a weight of 250 pounds, and he consented to plead. According to one writer on the
subject, the cord torture was last used about 1734.
A tragic episode in the history of the administration of justice in the Old Bailey was the invasion
of the court by the gaol-fever during the sessions
of May, 1750. 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," Sir
Samuel Pennant, Lord Mayor, and several members
of the Bar and of the jury.
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 one hundred
prisoners were tried, and they were kept all day
cooped up in two small rooms 14 feet by 11 feet
each way, and only 7 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." The disease again proved
fatal to several in 1772.
Upon the first outbreak of the gaol-fever the
custom arose of placing rue in front of the dock of
the Old Bailey to prevent infection: so it is stated
in Lawrence's "Life of Fielding" (1855). At the
trial of Manning and his wife for murder, it will be
remembered that at the conclusion of a speech by
one of the counsel, Mrs. Manning gathered some
of "the sprigs of rue placed on the dock," and
threw them vehemently over the wigged heads of
the "learned" gentlemen.
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."
FRONT OF NEWGATE FROM THE OLD BAILEY.
"If we are not misinformed," says an amusing
writer in the Quarterly Review for 1836, "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,
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
he deemed a reasonable hour—namely, about ten—
and 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."
SURGEONS' HALL, OLD BAILEY, 1800.
In 1807–8 the dinners for three sessions, nineteen
days, cost Sheriff Phillips and his colleague £35
per day—£665; 145 dozen of wine was consumed
at these dinners, costing £450, so that the total
of the bill came to £1,115.
And now we take leave of the Central Criminal
Court, according to Garth, in his "Dispensary,"
"—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 1783, on the 9th of December in which
year the first culprit suffered here the extreme
penalty of the law. Before that time the public
executions ordinarily took place at Tyburn. The
gallows of the Old Bailey was built with three
cross-beams for as many rows of victims, and
between February and December, 1785, ninety-six
persons suffered by the "new drop," an ingenious
invention which took the place of the cart. On
but one occasion the old mode of execution was
revived; a triangular gallows was set up in the
road, opposite Green Arbour Court, and the cart
was drawn from under the criminal's feet.
The front of Newgate continued to be the place
of execution in London from 1783 to 1868, 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 1864, which, in their report issued in
1865, 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 1820 there were fortythree executions in London; in 1825, seventeen;
in 1830, six; in 1835, none; in 1836, none; in
1837, two; in 1838, none; in 1839, two; in 1840,
one; in 1842, two; in 1843, none; in 1844, one;
in 1845, three; in 1846, two; and from 1847 to
1871 the average has been 1.48 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.
—thirty-eight years—it is said that no fewer than
72,000 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 1780
suffered in those parts of the town in which their
crimes were committed; and in 1790 two incendiaries were hanged in Aldersgate Street, at the
eastern end of Long Lane, opposite the site of the
house to which they had set fire. "Since that
period," Mr. Timbs observes, "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 1786 was witnessed in the Old Bailey 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 Old Bailey
include those of Mrs. Phepoe, for murder, December 11, 1797; Holloway and Haggerty, February
23rd, 1807; Bellingham, May 18th, 1812; Joseph
Hunton (Quaker), December 8th, 1828; Bishop
and Williams, December 5, 1831; John Pegsworth,
March 7th, 1837; James Greenacre, May 2, 1837;
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 23rd
of February, 1807, for the murder of Mr. Steele, on
Hounslow Heath, in 1802. Twenty-eight 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 Annual Register, 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." The most affecting scene
of distress was seen at Green Arbour Court, nearly
opposite the Debtors' Door.
Offenders frequently stood in the pillory in the
Old Bailey, 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
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," but it seems to have been freely used
for cheats of all description. Bakers for making
bread of light weight, and "dairymen for selling
mingled butter," were in the olden time "sharply
corrected" upon it. So also were fraudulent corn,
coal, and cattle dealers, cutters of purses, sellers
of sham gold rings, keepers of infamous houses,
forgers of letters, bonds, and deeds, counterfeits
of papal bulls, users of unstamped measures, and
forestallers of the markets. But just as the Old
Bailey Court witnessed occasionally the persecution of the innocent, so the pillory had at one
time other heroes than cheats, thieves, scandalmongers, and perjurers. "Thanks to Archbishop
Laud, and Star Chamber tyrants," says the late Dr.
Robert Chambers, "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.'" Many a courageous
and outspoken thinker will occur to every reader of
English history as having been set on this scaffold
of infamy, to the lasting disgrace of narrow-minded
tyranny.
The last who stood in the pillory of London was
Peter James Bossy, tried for perjury, and sentenced
to transportation for seven years. Previous to being
transported he was to be kept for six months in
Newgate, and to stand for one hour in the pillory
in the Old Bailey. The pillory part of the sentence
was executed on the 24th of June, 1830.
An Act of the British Parliament, dated June 30,
1837, put an end to the use of the pillory in the
United Kingdom. In 1815 it had been abolished
as a punishment except for perjury.
The Surgeons' Hall stood in the Old Bailey, on
the site of the New Sessions House, till 1809.
Pennant, in his "London," 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," he says, "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 to
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 1752, 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 one Foster, who was executed for
the murder of his wife. It was "lately," says a
writer in the Annual Register for 1803, "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 re
stored 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." But the most curious
part of the proceedings remains to be told. According to Mr. J. Saunders, in Knight's "London,"
1842, when the right arm was raised, as mentioned
above, it struck one of the officers of the institution, who died that very afternoon of the shock.
In April, 1760, Laurence Earl Ferrers was tried
before the House of Lords, 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." At the
latter part of the sentence, we are told, his lordship
cried out, "God forbid!" but, soon recollecting
himself, added, "God's will be done!" On
Monday, the 5th of May, he was hanged at
Tyburn, and the body was conveyed, with some
state, in his own landau and six, to the Surgeons'
Hall, in the Old Bailey, to undergo the remainder
of the sentence. A print of the time shows the
corpse as it lay here.
It was at this hall that Goldsmith presented himself in a new suit—not paid for—to be examined as
to his qualifications for being a surgeon's mate, on
the 21st of December, 1758. "The beadle called
my name," says Roderick Random, when he found
himself in a similiar condition at that place of
torture, "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," says Mr. John
Forster, "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," continues Goldsmith's
biographer, "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."
At what used to be No. 68 of the Old Bailey,
"the second door south of Ship Court," lived
Jonathan Wild, the famous thief-taker, who had a
very intimate acquaintance with the Sessions House.
A description of the Old Bailey 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 1712, 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 1717, 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
fourteen 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 one of the cleverest
of rogues, and it has been well said, in one sense,
merited the name of "great," bestowed upon him
by Fielding, in whose history of him, although the
incidents are fictitious, there is no exaggeration of
his talents or courage, any more than of his unscrupulousness and want of all moral principle.
The plan upon which he conducted his extensive
business operations was this. When thieves made
prizes of any sort, they delivered them up to him,
instead of carrying them to the pawnbroker, and
Wild restored the goods to the owners, for a consideration, by which means large sums were raised, and
the thieves remained secure from detection. To
manage this, he would apply to persons who had
been robbed, and pretend to be greatly concerned
at their misfortunes, adding that some suspected
goods had been stopped by a friend of his, a
broker, who would be willing to give them up; and
he did not fail to throw out a hint that the broker
merited some reward for his disinterested conduct
and his trouble, and to exact a promise that no disagreeable consequences should follow on account
of the broker's having omitted to secure the thieves
as well as the property. The person whose goods
had been carried off was generally not unwilling by
this means to save himself the trouble and expense
of a prosecution, and the money paid was usually
sufficient to remunerate the "broker," as well as
his agent.
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
one 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
and address in his books, inquires particularly about
the robbery, and sounds his client as to the reward
he will give in the event of the restitution being
made. "If you call again," he says, "I hope I
shall be able to give you some agreeable information." He calls again. Wild says that he has
heard about the goods, but the agent he has employed tells him that the robbers pretend that by
pawning them they can raise more money than
the amount of the reward. Would it not, he suggests, be a good plan to increase the reward? The
client consents, and retires. He calls the third
time. He has the goods placed in his hands: he
pays the reward over to Jonathan, and there is the
end of the transaction.
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 two lives, so to
speak; one 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 two 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;" and it contained the names of
thirty-five robbers, twenty-two housebreakers, and
ten returned convicts, whom he had been instrumental in getting hanged. This statement was
probably true enough. In the records of the trials
at the Old Bailey, for many years before it came to
his own turn, he repeatedly appeared, figuring in
the witness-box, and giving evidence for the prosecution, and in many cases he seems to have taken
a leading part in the apprehension of the prisoner.
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 three unfortunate
wretches indicted for several robberies in January,
1723, 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." The husband of the woman,
it appears, had really taken part in one of the robberies, though he now came forward to convict his
associates, having been, no doubt, all along in
league with Wild; and Blake (better known to
fame as Blueskin) also figured as king's evidence
on this occasion, and frankly admitted that he had
been out with the prisoners. The three unlucky
characters in the dock, while their comrades thus
figured in a freer and more pleasant situation,
"all," says the account of the trial, vehemently
"exclaimed against Jonathan Wild;" but they
were found guilty, and had the pleasure of swinging
in company on Tyburn-tree a few days afterwards.
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 two 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'" (crimes punishable only by transportation, whipping, imprisonment, &c., were denominated
single felonies). "And then, turning to me, he said,
'I believe you must die; I'll send you a good book
or two, and provide you a coffin, and you shall not
be anatomised!'"
The reward of £40, it has been explained,
which Wild could not manage to make Jacobs
bring "this time," was part of a system established
by various Acts of Parliament, which assigned
certain money payments to be made to persons
apprehending and prosecuting to conviction highway robbers, coiners, and other delinquents.
JONATHAN WILD'S HOUSE.
We come now to the end of Wild's career.
He was committed to Newgate on the 15th of
February, 1725, 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 first 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;" and the eleventh and last, that it appeared "he had often sold human blood by procuring false evidence to swear persons into facts
of which they were not guilty." On Saturday, the
15th of May, he was brought to trial on two
separate indictments. The jury found him guilty,
and he was sentenced to be executed at Tyburn
on Monday, the 24th of May, 1725. On the
morning of the execution the wretched man swallowed a dose of poison, but it failed to end his
life, and in a state of half-insensibility he was
placed in the cart that was to convey him to the
gallows. On the way he was pelted by the populace with stones and dirt, and, altogether, this
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 five 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 St. Giles's, 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
from them. The body of this infamous fellow was
secretly buried.
JONATHAN WILD IN THE CART. (From a Contemporary Print.)
Jonathan Wild's skeleton, says Mr. Timbs, in
1868, 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 1866. It was a musketoon given by Jonathan Wild to Blueskin, which
had fallen into the hands of the well-known magistrate, Sir John Fielding, and by him had been
given to his half-brother, Henry Fielding.
In 1841 a curious letter was found in the Town
Clerk's Office of the City of London, from Jonathan
Wild, asking for remuneration for services he had
rendered to the cause of justice. In the same letter,
written in 1723, 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 consideration of his valuable services.
There is a record that Jonathan Wild's petition was
read by the Court of Aldermen, but we do not find
evidence that the coveted freedom was awarded to
him. Wild's house was long distinguished by the
sign of the head of Charles I.
In the Old Bailey 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 Leicester Square.
The names of several eminent persons—altogether independent of the "Old Bailey Sessions
House"—occur to us as we perambulate this interesting locality. William Camden, the "nourrice
of antiquitie," was born in the Old Bailey, in 1550.
His father was a paper-stainer here. In Ship
Court, on the west side, Hogarth's father, Richard
Hogarth, kept a school. He seems to have come
early from the North of England, and was employed
in London as a teacher and as a corrector of the
press. He was a man of some learning; and
Chalmers, writing in 1814, mentions that a dictionary in Latin and English, which he compiled
for the use of schools, was then extant in manuscript. At No. 67, at the corner of Ship Court,
William Hone, in 1817, gave to the world his three
celebrated political parodies on the Catechism, the
Litany, and the Creed, for which he was three times
tried at Guildhall, and acquitted.
Peter Bales, the celebrated penman of the time
of Queen Elizabeth, kept a writing-school, in 1590,
at the upper end of the Old Bailey, and published
his "Writing Schoolmaster" here. In a writing
competition he once won a golden pen, of the
value of £20, and in addition had the "arms of
caligraphy—viz., azure, a pen or—given him as a
prize." This clever writer had a steady hand, and
wrote with such minuteness, that, remarks D'Israeli,
in his "Curiosities of Literature," he astonished the
eyes of beholders, by showing them what they could
not see. In the Harleian MSS. (530) we have a
narrative of "a rare piece of work brought to pass
by Peter Bales, an Englishman, and a clerk of the
Chancery," which seems, by the description, to
have been the whole Bible "in an English walnut
no bigger than a hen's egg. The nut," the account
goes on to say, "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." It is
added that this wonderfully unreadable volume
was "seen by thousands."
Prynne's "Histrio-Mastix, the Player's Scourge,"
was printed "for Michael Sparke, and sold at
the 'Blue Bible,' in Green Arbour, in Little Old
Bailey, 1633." This Little Old Bailey was a kind
of Middle Row in the Old Bailey. It has long
been removed.
One of the courts leading out of the Old Bailey
was Green Arbour Court, which ran from the upper
end of the street into Seacoal Lane. Here were
the famous Breakneck Steps referred to by Ward
in his "London Spy," 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."
This court, now destroyed, was specially interesting
as the residence of Oliver Goldsmith, about 1758,
a time when the poet was making shift to exist.
As to his sojourn here we shall take the liberty of
quoting a graphic passage from Mr. John Forster,
one of the best of Goldsmith's numerous biographers.
"With part of the money," he says, "received
from Hamilton"—the proprietor of the Critical
Review, to which the poet was at this time contributing—"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 a 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 rotted down some nineteen years
since" (Mr. Forster is writing in 1854), "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. (fn. 1) 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 "Reliques of English
Poetry." The grave church dignitary discovered
Goldsmith in his wretched room busily writing.
There being but one chair it was, out of civility,
offered to the visitor, and Goldsmith was himself
obliged to sit in the window. Whilst the two
were sitting talking together—Percy relates in his
memoir—some one 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."